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BRIEF HISTORY 



OF 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



? 



/fey 
B. C. BURT, M.A., 

Formerly Fellow, and Fellow by Courtesy, in the 
Johns Hopkins University. 



3 




BOSTON : 

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 

1889. 



PM 



I THE LIBRARY 

OF CONGRESS 

IwASH IWGTON 

■—— — • - ' * -~ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1888, by 

B. C. BURT, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



TyroGRArHY by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston. 
Presswokk by Ginn & Co., Boston. 



TO 

H. G. B. 

AND 

E. S. McK. 



PREFACE. 



The following work had its beginning in a series of 
essays written for one of the ethico-religious periodi- 
cals of the country. To these — at the suggestion of 
friends whose counsel seemed to be as valuable as that of 
any could possibly be and could not well be disregarded 
— others were added to make a brief account of Greek 
speculation from its beginning to its end. This account 
has been prepared in the belief that the problems of 
philosophy are in a large measure always the same, 
and that the Greek solutions of the cardinal problems, 
by reason of their simplicity and freshness (for they are 
solutions that were found when the world's thought was 
comparatively in its youth, and "are, in larger measure 
than those unacquainted with the history of thought 
begin to suspect, the only original solutions of those 
problems), and by reason of their remoteness from the 
prejudices of the present, have a certain value not pos- 
sessed by any others, particularly for the beginner in 
philosophical thinking. Most of the works treating of 
the subject of which this volume treats are learned and 
extensive, overwhelming the general reader, and even 



VI PREFACE. 

the student, almost, with a sense of the superabundant 
wealth of the ancient thought in particular and the 
world's thought in general. It is hoped that the pres- 
ent work will render accessible in convenient form and 
quantities some of the noblest portions of the intellect- 
ual wealth of Greece. An attempt is here made not 
merely to expound and elucidate, but also to present in 
their historical connection, and give a just estimate of 
the validity of, the leading standpoints and categories 
of Greek thinking. Much reading and not a little 
original study have been given to the task. 

The writer takes the liberty to express here his sense 
of obligation to G. S. Morris, Professor of Philosophy 
in the University of Michigan, and formerly Lecturer 
on Philosopy in the Johns Hopkins University, and to 
G. S. Hall, late Professor of Psychology in the Johns 
Hopkins University, and now President of Clark Uni- 
versity, for suggestions and encouragement received 
from them. A word of thanks is due also to John 
Dewey, now Assistant Professor of Philosophy in 
Michigan University, and Professor Elect of Philos- 
ophy in the University of Minnesota ; and to a college- 
classmate who has become a life-companion. 

Ann Arbor, June, 1888. 



GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Introductory Paragraph, p. i. 

' I. NATURALISM, pp. 1-34. 

§1. 

The Hylicists, Hylozoists, or Early Ionic Natural Philosophers : 
Thales, p. I; Anaximander, p„ 2; Anaximenes, p. 3; Result, p. 3. 

§2. 
The Pythagoreans, p. 4 : Pythagoras and the Pythagorean Society, pp. 
4-6; Pythagorean Philosophy, p. 6; Number-Theory and Doctrine 
of Contraries, pp. 6-7; Theories not purely Pythagorean, pp. 7-9; 
Miscellaneous Theories, p. 9; Result, p. 9. 

§3- 

The Eleatics, p. 10 : Life of Xenophanes, p. 10; Philosophy of Xenopha- 

nes, p. 11; Result, p. 11; Life of Parmenides, p. 12; Philosophy of 

Parmenides, pp. 13-14; Result, p. 15; Life of Zeno, p. 16; Philosophy 

of Zeno, p. 16 ; Result, pp. 17-18; Melissus, p. 18; General Result, p. 19. 

§4. 
Heraclitus : Life of Heraclitus, p. 20; First Principle, pp. 20-21 ; Physi- 
cal Doctrine, p. 22; The Soul and Reason, p. 22; Result, p. 23. 

§5- 
Later Natural Philosophers, p. 23: Life of Empedocles,^. 24; Theory 
of Nature, pp. 24-25 ; Theory of Knowledge, p. 26; Result, p. 26; 
Life of Anaxagoras, p. 27; Theory of Nature, pp. 27-28; Theory of 
. Nous, or Mind, and Knowledge, p. 29; Result, p. 29; The Atomists, 
Leucippus and Democritus, p. 30; Theory of Nature, pp. 30-31 ; Theory 
of the Soul, etc., pp. 31-32; Result, pp. 32-33. 



V1H GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

§6. 
General Character of the First Period in the History of Greek 
Philosophy, pp. 33-34. 



II. RATIONALISM, pp. 34-263. 

§7- 

The Sophists, p. 34 : Life of Protagoras, p. 35 ; Theory of Protagoras, pj 
35-36; Life of Gorgias, p. 36; Theory of Gorgias, pp. 36-37; Result, 
p. 37. Hippias and Prodicus, p. 38; The Sophists as a Class (Result), 
pp. 38-40. 

§8. 
Socrates : The Sophists and Socrates, p. 41 ; Special Sources of Informa- 
tion regarding Socrates, p. 42; Life of Socrates, pp. 42-45 ; Personal- 
ity of Socrates and its Relation to the Subsequent History of Greek 
Philosophy, pp. 45-47; Philosophy of Socrates, p. 47; Spirit of the 
Socratic Philosophizing, pp. 48-50; The Socratic Method, pp. 50-54; 
The Doctrines of Socrates (their general character), p. 54; Physical Phi- 
losophy of Socrates, p. 55; (Ethical Philosophy of Socrates) Relations 
between Knowledge and Virtue, p. 56; General Consequences of the 
Unity of Knowledge and Virtue, p. 57; Classification of the Virtues, 
p. 58; Temperance, p. 58; Friendship, p. 59; Right Citizenship and 
Justice, p. 60; Piety, p. 61; Wisdom, p. 62; Beauty, p, 63; General 
Result, pp. 63-64. 

§9- 
The Followers of Socrates, p. 65. 

§ 10. 
The Lesser Socratics, p. 65 : The Megarians {Euclid, Eubulides, 
Diodorus, Stilpo, and their doctrines), pp. 66-67; The Cynics (Antis- 
thenes, Diogenes, — their doctrines), pp. 67-69; The Cyrenaics (Atis- 
tippus, Theodorus, Hegesias, Anniceris, — their doctrines), pp. 69-71 ; 
Result, p. 71. 

fix. 

Plato: Life of Plato, pp. 72-75; Plato's Works, pp. 75-78; Plato's Gen- 
eral Conception of Philosophy, pp. 78-81; The Divisions of Philoso- 
phy, p. 81; Dialectic as a Twofold Science, p. 82; Dialectic as a 
Theory of Knowledge and Method, pp. 82-84; (Dialectic as a System) 






GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. IX 

Thought and Being, pp. 84-85; The World of Ideas, pp. 85-87; 
Relation of the Ideal, to the Phenomenal, World, pp. 88-90; (Physics, 
or the Theory of Nature) The Method of Physical Speculation, p. 90; 
The Cosmos, pp. 91-93; Body and Soul, pp. 93-97; (Plato's Ethics) 
General Basis, p. 98; The Method of Ethics, p. 98; Nature and End 
of the State, p. 99; The Parts of the State and the Virtue of Each, pp. 
99-101; Virtue in the Individual, p. ioi; State Administration, p. 102; 
False Forms of the State and their Genesis, pp. 104-107; The Eternal 
Life, p. 107; Beauty and Art, p. 108; Later Form of Plato's Philosophy, 
pp. 109-113; Result, pp. 111-113. 

§12. 
The Disciples of Plato, p, 113. 



The Old Academy, p. 114: Speusippus, p. 114; Xenocrates, p. 115; 
Other Members of the Old Academy, p. 116. 

§ 14. 
Aristotle: Life of Aristotle, p. 116; General Character of Aristotle's 
System, and His Chief Philosophical Works, pp. 1 18-122; Theory of 
Knowledge, p. 122; Kinds of Knowledge, p. 122; Scientific, or Phil- 
osophical, Knowledge, p. 122; Demonstration, p. 123; The Syllogism 
(Deductive), pp. 123-125; Definition and Predicables, p. 125; The 
Categories, p. 126; Syllogism (Inductive), pp. 127-128; Probable 
Proof and Dialectical and Rhetorical Method, p. 129; First Philosophy, 
or Metaphysics, p. 130; Being and Plato's Ideas, p. 131; Matter and 
Form, Potentiality and Actuality, p. 132; Causes, or First Principles 
(dpx«0» PP- I 33 -I 34> Kinds of Real Substance, Immovable Substance, 
God, p. 135; Physics, or the Philosophy of Nature, p. 136; Essential 
Character of Nature, pp. 136-137; Method of the Philosophy of Nature, 
p. 137; Motion, Space, and Time, p. 138; The Visible Universe, p. 
139; Graduated Scale of Being in Nature, p. 140; Psychology as a 
Science, p. 140; Body and Soul, p. 141 ; Parts, or Faculties, of the 
Soul, p. 142-147; (General Analysis, p. 142; Sense-Faculties, p. 143; 
Phantasy and Memory, p. 144; Reason, pp. 144-146; Desire and Loco- 
motion, p. 146) ; Practical Philosophy, p. 147; Method of Practical 
Philosophy, p. 147 ; End of Practical Philosophy, or " Political Science," 
pp. 148-149; Psychological Basis of Ethics, p. 149; Sources and Con- 
ditions of Virtue, pp. 150-152; Definition of Virtue, p. 152; Deliberate 



X GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Choice, p. 153; The Ethical Virtues, pp. 154-157; Right Reason, Pru- 
dence and the Intellectual Virtues, Generally, pp. 157-158; Self- 
Control and its Opposite, p. 158; Friendship, p. 159; Pleasure and 
Happiness, p. 160; "Practical" Ethics, p. 160; Origin of the State, 
p. 161; The Family, p. 162; Criticism of Certain Theories and Forms 
of State (Plato and Others), pp. 162-165; Tne End of the State > P- 
165; The Nature of the Citizen, p. 165; A Polity and its Kinds, p. 
166; Who Should be Rulers, p. 167; The Best Polity, pp. 168-170; 
Characteristics of Different Polities, pp. 170-174; Methods of Estab- 
lishing and Maintaining the Various Forms of State, pp. 174-177; 
Causes of Political Revolutions, pp. 1 77-1 80; The Most Permanent 
Polities, p. 181; Plato's Theory of Revolutions, p. 181 ; Rhetoric, pp. 
181-182; Poietical Philosophy, p. 183; Sources and Genesis of Aris- 
totle's Philosophy, pp. 1 85-190; Substantial Unity of Plato and 
Aristotle, p. 191 ; Result, pp. 191-194. 

§15. 
The Peripatetic School, p. 194: Theophrastus, p. 195; Strato of Lamp- 
sacus, p. 196; Diccearch of Messene, p. 196. 

§16. 
Three Leading Post-Aristotelian Schools, p. 196. 

§ 17- 

The Stoics and Stoicism: Zeno, Cleanihes, Chrysippus, and Others — 
Lives, pp. 197-199; Stoic Conception of the Nature and Parts of Phi- 
losophy, p. 199; Stoic Logic, p. 200; Origin of Ideas, pp. 200-201 ; 
The Criterion of Truth in Ideas, p. 202; System and Logical Method, 
p. 202; The Categories, p. 203; Physics, or the Theory of Nature, pp. 
204-206; Ethics and its Parts, p. 206; The Chief Good, — Life accord- 
ing to Nature, p. 207; Nature of Virtue, p. 207; Classes of Virtue, p. 
208; Classes of Goods, — the Summum Bomtm, pp. 209-211; The 
Wise Man, pp. 211-212; The Stoics, and the Popular Religion, p. 213; 
Historical Sources of Stoicism, p. 213; Result, pp. 214-215. 



The Epicureans and Epicureanism: Epicurus and his School, pp. 
216-218; The Parts of Philosophy, p. 218; (Canonics) Criterion of 
Truth in Ideas, pp. 219-220; Method of the Study of Nature, p. 220; 
Physics — Aim and General Character, p. 221; First Principle, p. 221; 
Atoms, pp. 222-224; Properties of bodies, p. 224; The Visible Uni- 



GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI 

verse, pp. 224-226; The Gods, p. 227; The Human Soul, pp. 227-229; 
Ethics — First Principle (Pleasure), p. 227; Kinds of Pleasure, p. 230; 
The Wise Man, pp. 230-232; Friendship, p. 232; The State, p. 233; 
Religion, p. 2T,y, Historical Sources of the Epicurean Doctrines, p. 
234; Result, pp. 234-235. 

§ 19. 

The Sceptics, p. 235 : Pyrrhonisms — Pyrrho, Timon of Phlius, ALneside- 
vius, Agrippa, Sextus Empiricus, p. 236; Theories of the Earlier 
Pyrrhonists, p. 236; The Later Pyrrhonists — The "Tropes," p. 237; 
The Impossibility of Demonstration, Sign, and Cause, p. 239; Pure 
Negativism of the Pyrrhonists, p. 240; Middle and Nezu Academies, 
p. 240; Arcesilaus, p. 241; Cameades, pp. 241-243; Result, pp. 
243-245. 



The Common Ground of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, pp. 
245-247. 

§21. 

Philosophy in Rome: Eclecticism, p. 247. 



The Later Peripatetics, pp. 248-250; Andronicus of Rhodes, Boethus 
of Sidon, an unknown author, Alexander of JEgce, Aspasius and 
■ Adrastus of Aphrodisias, Aristocles, Alexander of Aphrodisias. 

§23- 

The Later Academics, pp. 250-251 ; Philo of Larissa, p. 250; Antiochus 
of Ascalon, p. 250. 

§24. 

The Later Stoics, pp. 251-261; Boethus, p. 251; Pancstius of Rhodes, 
p. 252; Posidonius, p. 252; Varro, p. 253; Cicero — Life, pp. 253-254; 
General Conception of Philosophy, p. 255; Theory of Knowledge, p. 
255; Physics, p. 256; Ethics, pp. 256-258; Seneca — Life, p. 258; 
Philosophy, pp. 258-260; Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, Marcus 
Aurelius, p. 260; Cynicism, p. 261. 

§25. 
General Character of the Second Period, pp. 261-262. 



Xll GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



III. SUPRA-RATIONALISM (AND SUPRA-NATURALISM), pp. 
263-296. 

§26. 
Standpoint and Schools of the Third and Latest Period of Greek 
Philosophy, p. 263. 

§27. 

Jewish-Alexandrian School, p. 264: Aristobulns, p. 264; Philo- 
JudcEiis, General' Attitude, p. 264; Theory of Knowledge, p. 265; 
God, p. 266; The Logos, p. 266; The Sensible World and Matter, p. 
267; Man, p. 267; Result, p. 268. 

§28. 
Neo-Pythagoreanism, p. 269. 

§29. 

The Eclectic Platonists, p. 269. 

§30- 
Neo-Platonism : Ammonius Saccas, p. 270; Plotinus — Life, p. 270; 
Dialectic, pp. 271-274; Reason, Intellect or Nous (Realm of Ideas), pp. 
274-276; The One, The First, The Good, pp. 276-278; Intellect, Rea- 
son, or Nous, as an Emanation, pp. 278-280; Soul, pp. 280-281; 
Soul and Body, pp. 281-284; Individual Soul and Soul of the World, 
p. 284; The Sensible World and Matter, pp. 284-286; Virtue, p. 287; 
Historical Sources of the System of Plotinus, p. 288; Result, pp. 
289-291. Porphyry and Others, p. 291; Jamblichiis, p. 291 ; Proclus 
— Life, p. 292; Philosophy of Proclus, pp. 293-295; Result, p. 296. 



BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



I >r the convenience of the student a list is here given of 
the : :incipal easily-accessible works referred to in the following 
pag, or consulted in the preparation of them. The names 
of o* rer works are to be found in foot-notes throughout the 
volv e. 

Xe^ophon's Memorabilia of Socrates (Fielding's trans.). 

Plato's Works (Jowett's trans., with Analyses and Introductions). 

Ari? :otle's Works : — 

Organon (trans, by Owen in Bohn's Class. Lib.). 

Metaphysics (trans, by McMahan in Bohn's Class. Lib.). 

Psychology (trans, by E. Wallace, with Introd., and Notes and 
Text). 

Nico7nachean Ethics (trans, by Browne in Bohn's Class. Lib., and 
by Peters). 

Politics (trans, by Welldon). 

Rhetoric and Poetic (trans, by Buckley in Bohn's Class. Lib.). 
Lives of the Philosophers, by Diogenes Laertius (trans, by Yonge 

in Bohn's Class. Lib.). 
Cicero's De Officiis (trans, by Edmonds in Harper's Class. Lib.). 
Seneca's Works (Lodge's trans.). 
Select Works of Plotinus (trans, by T. Taylor). 
Five Books of Plotinus (trans, by Taylor). 
Zeller's Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy (trans, by 

Alleyne and Abbott). 
Zeller's Pre-Socratic Philosophy, 2 vols, (a translation by S. F. 

Alleyne from Zeller's Die Geschichte der Philosophic der Griechen. 
Zeller's Socrates and the Socratic Schools (trans, by Reichel). 



XIV BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Zeller's Plato and the Older Academy (trans, by Alleyne and Good- 
win). 

Zeller's Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics (trans, by Reichel). 

Zeller's The Eclectics (trans, by Alleyne). 

Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy. 

Ueberweg's History of Philosophy (Morris's trans.). 

Schwegler's Handbook of the History of Philosophy (St ling's 
trans.). 

Ritter's History of Ancient Philosophy (trans, by Morrison). 

A. W. Benn's The Greek Philosophers, 2 vols. 

Grote's Plato. 

Grote's Aristotle. 

E. Wallace's Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle. 

Grant's Aristotle. 

Grant's Ethics of Aristotle, 2 vols. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



Greek Philosophy had its beginning in the seventh 
centu-y B.C. As distinguished from the theogony and 
cosmogony of the poets, its natural precursors, it was, in 
its beginning, an attempt to explain the sensible world 
— its origin and constitution — upon the basis of defi- 
nite, natural fact, or what was regarded as such, instead 
of supernatural existences, such as gods and goddesses. 
In this attempt observation and reflection played the 
part played by imagination or fancy in the earlier ; 
science and speculation, crude and false, though, no 
doubt, they in large measure were, took the place 

of mythology. 

i 

I. NATURALISM. 

§1- 

77 Hylicists, Hylozoists, or Early Ionic Natural 
Phil sop hers. 

Thales. — The earliest of the Greek philosophers was 
Thak born at Miletus, a city on the western coast of 
Asia Minor, about the year 640 B.C. Thales was distin- 
guished for political and ethical wisdom, for his knowl- 
edge of arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, and for his 
Egyp'*an and Eastern lore. Several propositions in 
elementary geometry have been attributed to him, and 



2 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

he was reputed to have predicted an eclipse of the sun. 1 
He declared the source of all things to be water ; hav- 
ing, perhaps, been led to this hypothesis by the observa- 
tion of the fact that water plays a great part in the econ- 
omy of nature, or, as Aristotle says, by the idea that the 
seeds and nutriment of all things have a watery charac- 
ter. Thales held that nature is not merely material and 
mechanical, but animate ; that water, the primal matter, 
is filled with life or soul. He may have believed in the 
existence of a world-soul, but probably not in the exist 
ence of an independent, world-ordering mind : dualism 
originated later in the history of philosophy. 

Anaximander. — Next, chronologically, to Thales was 
Anaximander, also of Miletus, born 61 1 B.C., whose work, 
On Nature (irepl <f)v<rea)<;), was the earliest of many works 
of the same class written by the early Greek philoso- 
phers. Like Thales, he was a "scientist," being a 
geographer and astronomer. He affirmed that all 
things arise out of, and return into, an infinite entity, 
indeterminate in character, which he termed to aireipov, 
the Infinite (indefinite), and apx*)* "first principle." He 
was, it appears, the first philosopher who employed the 
term apyj] in this sense. Out of the Infinite, which he 
called " the Divine " and conceived as an eternal and 
living, though not immaterial, being, he supposed actual 
existences to have sprung by the generation, first, of the 
"contraries," "the warm" and "the cold," "the moist" 
and "the dry," then, by an eternal motion, of the uni- 
verse of worlds, in the centre of which is the earth, fixed 
in position and cylindrical in form. From the original 

1 Ueberweg's History of Philosophy (Morris's translation), Vol. I. 
pp. 34 and 35. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 3 

moisture all things were generated by heat. Animals 
and men were evolved from fishes. The soul he de- 
clared to be aeriform. Anaximander may be called the 
earliest "evolutionist." 

Anaximenes. — Nearly contemporary with Anaximan- 
der was another Milesian, named Anaximenes (588— 
524 b.c). He assumed air to be the apyr\ of things, 
conceiving it as infinite in extent and as animate, having 
within itself, to employ a modern phrase, " the promise 
and potency of life." From air, he held, fire, winds, 
clouds, water, an,d earth were generated by the processes 
of " thinning" (fire) and "thickening" — rarefaction and 
condensation. 

Result. — Aristotle, in the first chapter of his account 
of early Greek philosophy, — the third chapter of the 
first book of his Metaphysics, — affirms that scientific 
knowledge is the knowledge of causes, which he divides 
into four classes : the formal cause, or that which con- 
stitutes the essence of a thing ; the material cause ; the 
efficient cause, or "first principle of motion" ; the final 
^ause, *or the end. He affirms, and rightly, that the ear- 
liest philosophers were occupied with tjje consideration 
' of the material cause of things, i.e., the material source 
1 and constitution of the universe. Because of this they 
' have been called Hylicists (v\rj, hyle, = matter) ; and be- 
cause they held matter to be, not dead, but living, they 
have received the name of Hylozoists (^(orj, = life). It 
should be noted, however, that in the Infinite of Anaxi- 
mander there is the germ of a principle not merely physi- 
cal but metaphysical ; for the Infinite, as such, cannot 
be grasped by the imagination or sensuous thought, but 
must be apprehended by abstract and pure thought, 



4 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

though it is only virtual and negative, not actual and 
positive, conception. It should be noted, also, that there 
are in the speculations of Anaximander and Anaximenes 
the suggestion of processes by which the original world- 
stuff becomes actual concrete things ; though this part 
of their theories must be regarded as having been of 
secondary importance in their thoughts. Crude as their 
speculations must now appear to every one, Thales, 
Anaximander, and Anaximenes must be looked upon as 
philosophers, because they sought to determine the uni- 
versal permanent element in what was for them the 
universe. They are commonly spoken of as the Early 
Ionic Natural Philosophers. 

§2- 

The Pythagoreans. — The next step in Greek specu- 
lation was taken by Pythagoras and his followers, re- 
garding whom and the theories of whom it is difficult to 
arrive at clear, consistent, unquestionable views. 1 

Pythagoras and the Pythagorean Order. — Pythagora 
was born on the island of Samos, near the coast o 
Asia Minor, about the year 580 B.C., dying at Metapon 
turn in Lower Italy about the year 510 b.c. Possibl) 
he was a pupil of Anaximander, and familiar with his 
scientific and philosophical views. Possibly, also, ht 
travelled in Egypt, making additions to the store of his 
scientific knowledge, and receiving a new religious and 
ethical impulse through contact with the learned priest- 
hood there. He was regarded by Heraclitus, a philoso- 

1 See Zeller's Pre-Socratic Philosophy (a translation by S. F. Alleyne 
of a portion of Zeller's Geschichte der Philosophic der Griechen), Vol. I. 
pp. 306-308. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 5 

pher of the next century, as very learned, but not very 
profound. He either founded or contemplated founding 
an ethico-religious order in his native place. Such an 
order he did found in Crotona, Lower Italy, whither 
some of his countrymen had migrated and he himself 
went in 529 b.c. This order was, it may be conjectured, 
such an embodiment as was possible to be made by a 
Grecian on Grecian soil, of the idea of monasticism which 
Pythagoras, if he visited Egypt, had brought from that 
ntry. The discipline of the society was, particularly 
in the later period of its existence, of the rigid, aristo-' 
cratic sort, out of harmony, as Hegel remarks, with the 
democratic spirit of Greece. Habitual silence, implicit 
obedience to the authority of the master, fidelity to 
friends, abstinence, self-scrutiny, non-proselytism, were 
required of all its members. Physical, as well as in- 
tellectual, moral, and religious, culture was aimed at. 
Pythagoras professed to be, not cro^os, wise, but 0tXocro- 
(£ov, lover of wisdom ; and we may regard the society 
he founded as an organization intended to furnish the 
conditions for a philosophic life. He was, it appears, 
x man capable of leading such a life and of inspiring 
others to do so. He was looked upon as a very Apollo 
in his appearance, character, and gift of inspiration ; and 
fabulous stories gathered about his name. By his per- 
sonal dignity and worth, and by his teachings, he was 
able to show — and was perhaps the first among the 
Greek philosophers who did show — that wisdom is an 
affair of character and life as well as of knowledge. The 
maxims of the so-called "Wise Men" savor of a moral 
utilitarianism not to be found in the doctrine and prac- 
tice of Pythagoras and his followers. But the ideal of 



6 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Pythagoras was not that of pure asceticism ; nor was the 
society, at least in the earlier part of its existence, nar- 
rowly monastic : the earlier Pythagoreans were, says 
Grote, men of " practical efficiency of body and mind." 
The society became large, and strong, not merely by its 
influence upon the lives of its members, but also by its 
influence in the political affairs of Lower Italy. It was 
the prototype of many societies in other cities in Lower 
Italy. It existed for more than a century ; having been 
finally broken up by the opposition it aroused in the 
democratic element of the population because of its too 
decided espousal of the principles of the aristocratic 
party. 

The Pythagorean Philosophy. — We come now to the 
Pythagorean philosophy, the speculations, that is to say, 
of Pythagoras and his followers. It has been found 
impossible to distinguish those of Pythagoras from 
those of his followers. 

The Number -Theory and the Doctrine of " Contraries ." 
— According to Aristotle, 1 the Pythagoreans, having 
especially cultivated the mathematical sciences, fancied 
that they discovered the patterns, or archetypes, of 
things, not in any sensible thing, as fire, earth, or 
water, but in number, and asserted that the principles 
of number were the principles of being, and that the 
"whole heaven was a harmony and number." They 
did not distinguish between the affirmation that the 
principles or laws of number are the principles or laws 
of things, and the affirmation that numbers themselves 
are things or the substances of things ; between number 
as a " formal cause," and number as a "material cause," 

1 Metaphysics, Bk. I., ch. 5. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 7 

of all things. Now number is odd or even, one being 
both odd and even. The odd is finite; the even infi- 
nite. The number ten was held to be perfect. Some 
of the Pythagoreans, Aristotle states, asserted that the 
first principles were ten in number — ten pairs of " con- 
traries " : the finite and infinite, the odd and the even, 
unity and plurality, right and left, male and female, rest 
and motion, straight and crooked, light and darkness, 
good and bad, square and oblong. There seems at first 
to be no direct connection between this crude table of 
"categories" and the number-theory. The uniting 
link between them may, however, be the thought that 
the truth is the union of a contrariety of elements, i.e., 
a harmony. Such seem to be the main features of the 
Pythagorean theory in its earlier form. 

Theories not purely Pythagorean. — Other theories 
have been, though to some extent wrongly, 1 attributed 
to the Pythagoreans. In one of these the number one 
represents the Deity, and, again, the principle of unity 
or continuity in things, two represents the principle of 
variety or difference, three the union of the two, four (as 
the square of two) the "perfection" of mere differ- 
ence, and ten, "the perfect number" (the sum of one, 
two,Jhree, and foztr), the complete organic unity and har- 
mony of the world. Again : " The author of a work as- 
cribed to Philolaus [a Pythagorean of the fifth century 
b.c] sees in the principles of number the principles of 
things. These principles are 'the limiting' and 'illimi- 
tation.' They converge to harmony, which is unity in 
multiplicity and agreement in heterogeneity. Thus 
they generate in succession, first, unity, then the series 

1 Zeller's Prc-Socratic Phil, Vol. I. pp. 386 and fol* 



8 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

of arithmetical or monadic numbers, then 'geomet- 
rical' numbers or 'magnitudes,' i.e., the forms of 
space : point, line, surface, solid ; next material ob- 
jects, then life, sensuous consciousness, and the higher 
psychical forces, as love, friendship, mind, and intelli- 
gence. Like is known by like, but it is by number 
that things are brought into harmonious relations to the 
soul. The understanding, developed by mathematical 
study, is the organ of knowledge. Musical harmony 
depends on a certain numerical proportion in the 
lengths of musical strings. The octave, in particular, 
or harmony in the narrow sense, depends on the ratio 
i : 2, which includes the two ratios of the fourth (3 : 4) 
and the fifth (2:3 or 4:6). [This fact was discovered 
by Pythagoras himself.] The five regular solids — the 
cube, the tetrahedron, the octahedron, icosahedron, the 
dodecahedron — are respectively the fundamental forms 
of earth, fire, air, water, and the fifth element, which 
encompasses all the rest. The soul is united by number 
and harmony with the body, which is its organ, and at 
the same time its prison. From the Hestia, i.e., from 
the central fire around which the earth and counter- 
earth 1 daily revolve, the soul of the world spreads through 
the spheres of the counter-earth, the earth, the moon, 
the sun, the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, 
Saturn, and the fixed stars to ' Olympus,' the last sphere, 
which includes all the others. The world is eternal and 

1 Supposed to be under the earth and moving around the central fire 
with it. Ten being the perfect number, there must, it was thought, be ten 
bodies "borne through the heaven." There being, says Aristotle, only 
nine apparent, the Pythagoreans assumed a tenth, calling it Counter-Earth 
{b.vri%Q(jiv)> 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 9 

ruled by the One, who is akin to it, and has supreme 
might and excellence. The director and ruler of all 
things is God ; he is one and eternal, enduring and im- 
movable, ever like himself and different from all things 
beside him. He compasses and guards the universe." 1 

Miscellaneous Theories. — Certain other discoveries 
and theories of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans may 
be here mentioned for interest's sake ; some of them 
bear relation to the number-theory, others do not. 
Pythagoras is said to have discovered two important 
truths in geometry : one relating to the triangle inscribed 
within a semicircle, and another to the square of the 
hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle. The discovery 
of the latter is said to have elated him so much that he 
sacrificed a hundred oxen and made a great feast. Some 
of the Pythagoreans, if not Pythagoras himself, fancied 
that the supposed celestial spheres were arranged at 
intervals corresponding mathematically to the intervals of 
the octave. Some of the Pythagoreans believed that the 
earth rotated upon an axis. Pythagoras held the doc- 
trine of the transmigration of souls, — believed that his 
own soul had inhabited the body of Euphorbus, a Tro- 
jan hero. The noblest education for a youth he thought 
to be that which would fit him to be the citizen of a 
well-regulated state. 

Result. — From the foregoing it appears that though 
the Pythagorean order was primarily religious and ethi- 
cal, the Pythagorean philosophy was cosmical, a philos- 
ophy not of conduct and of God but of the sensible 
universe ; it appears, also, that, as Aristotle pointed out, 
the first principle, the apxv> °f the Pythagorean theory 

1 Ueberweg's Hist, of Phil, (trans.) Vol. I. p. 49, 



10 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

is not " material" but "formal" or primarily so. The 
subject of the Pythagorean speculation was, that is to 
say, not the original world-stuff or material source of 
things but the order stamped upon phenomena. These 
speculations must be regarded as a step in advance of 
those of the Hylicists. The Pythagorean theories, we 
shall hereafter see, largely influenced subsequent specu- 
lation, particularly that of Plato and the Platonists. 

§3- 

The Eleatics. — Nearly contemporaneous with the 
Pythagoreans was a school of thinkers known in the 
history of philosophy as the Eleatics, being so named 
from the city of Elea in Lower Italy, where they taught. 
The leaders of this school were Xenophanes, Parmeni- 
des, Zeno, and Melissus. 

Life of Xenophanes. — Xenophanes, who was born 
about the year 570 B.C., was a native of Colophon a 
town near the coast of Asia Minor, and not far fr)m 
Miletus and Samos, the birth-places of Thales and lis 
followers, and of Pythagoras. He was an elegiac i nd 
gnomic poet, a wandering rhapsodist, in whom the n ys- 
tery of nature awakened a profound religious and spec- 
ulative impulse. He was, it seems, very decidedly at 
variance with popular religious and ethical views, and, 
like many another intellectual radical, was obliged to 
surfer on account of his convictions, becoming a fugi- 
tive or an exile (it is uncertain which of the two; 
because of them. He settled at Elea, there founding 
the Eleatic school, distinguished and influential, as we 
shall have abundant occasion to note, in the history of 
Greek thought. He wrote a didactic poem, On Nature. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. II 

Philosophy of Xenophanes. — Xenophanes took his 
start apparently from the Infinite of Anaximander. In- 
stead, however, of attempting to supplement and per- 
fect this conception by uniting it with its opposite, the 
Finite, as did the Pythagoreans, he lifted it above all oppo- 
sition and held (more or less unconsciously perhaps) the 
real infinite to be not existent in or for anything other 
than itself, either as source of being or as ground of 
harmony, but existent simply in and for itself. He af- 
firmed, says Aristotle, that the universe is one, and 
"looking wistfully at the whole heaven he declared 
that the One is God." In other words, he held that 
"the Many," multiplicity, is, as such, non-existent, and 
that all things are parts or forms or aspects of the One. 
The One, he held, is beyond human comprehension, 
and yet he called it God, saying, " God is all ear, all 
eye, all intellect ; without effort he sways all things by 
the force of his thought." He combated the popular 
anthropomorphic dogmas concerning the gods by such 
arguments as the following : If oxen and lions had the 
requisite skill, they would picture their gods as animals, 
like themselves. He condemned Homer and Hesiod 
for representing the gods as doing those things which 
men would be treated as criminals for doing — as lying, 
stealing, committing adultery. Although Xenophanes 
did not, so far as we know, explicitly affirm the One to 
be either material or spiritual — the explicit and clear 
distinction, familiar to us, between the material and 
spiritual was probably of later origin in the history 
of thought — he held it to be essentially what we 
call spiritual. Without mentally separating mind and 
matter he declared reality to be one (the Many being 



12 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

phenomenal). The One as one is not a subject of gen- 
eration or decay, of multiplicity or change : it is eternal, 
infinite, imperishable. Regarding the Many, i.e., the 
gods and the multitude of visible phenomena, Xeno- 
phanes seems to affirm that man's knowledge is mere 
opinion. Speaking hypothetically, he said that all 
things have as their elements earth and water ; the 
earth extends indefinitely in space below us, .the air 
indefinitely above ; the stars are fiery clouds. 

Result. — Compared with the speculations of earlier 
philosophers those of Xenophanes present two new 
features : first, they are not materialistic nor mathe- 
matico-idealistic but theistic, — Xenophanes, though a 
nature-philosopher, was a theological and rationalistic 
nature-philosopher ; secondly, they contain an element 
of scepticism, — the mental attitude of Xenophanes 
towards phenomena, or the universe as immediately 
known to us, is negative. 

Life of Parmenides. — Of the life of Parmenides, the 
greatest of the Eleatics, who was born in the latter part 
of the sixth century B.C., very little is known. He was 
a man of striking appearance and impressive personality. 
Plato a represents Socrates as having in his youth met 
Parmenides and as remembering him in later life as 
quite an old man, " with grey hair and a handsome anc 
noble countenance." The Pythagorean views of cultuic 
were familiar to him and were in part adopted and prac 
tised by him, through the influence, it would appear, of 
intimate friends of his who were Pythagoreans. Like 
the Pythagoreans, he engaged actively in public affairs ; 
and is said to have drafted for his native city, Elea, a 

1 Parmenides, p. 127. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I 3 

code of laws to which the citizens, annually, for a con- 
siderable period of years, swore fidelity. He was, in all 
probability, a pupil of Xenophanes ; it is certain that he 
adopted the latter's views and developed them, in writ- 
ing and in public lectures and discussions. He wrote a 
philosophical poem, entitled On Nature, and having three 
parts : the first, which is merely introductory to the sec- 
ond and third, being an allegory representing the poet 
as being transported to the realm of the " goddess who 
knoweth all things" ; the second, a logical exposition of 
the conception of Being, entitled On Truth; the third, 
a mythological representation of the generation of the 
world of sense, entitled On Opinion. 1 

Philosophy of Parmenides. — Parmenides begins the 
exposition of his theory by opposing to Opinion, as the 
mental correlate of Phenomena, Conviction, as the men- 
tal correlate of Being, — Conviction, upon whose " foot- 
steps Truth closely follows." The One, which he 
denominates Being, is known by thought or reason. 
Thinking and Being are thus one (the One) and in 
such a way that it matters not with which you begin 
in thought, — you must always arrive at the same result, 
since all things are one. But Being is only of what is: 
there is no not-Being. Not-Being cannot even be con- 
ceived, for the very conception of it converts it into 
Being. The idea of not-Being (nothing) is a spurious con- 
ception, a mere fancy. Being, and Being only, is : it is 

< Whole and only begotten, and moveless and ever-enduring : 
/ Never it was or shall be ; but the All simultaneously now is 
J One continuous one." 2 

/ } See the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. IV. No. I. (1870); 
1 also W. L. Courtney's Studies in Philosophy. 

2 Jour. Spec. Phil., Vol. IV., etc. ; Courtney's Studies, etc. 



14 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

It cannot have been generated, for, if so, it must have 
sprung from not-Being; but there could have been in 
not-Being (pure nothing) no power or necessity to cause 
its production. Being must be wholly or wholly must 
not be. 1 Nor does anything absolutely other than itself 
spring from Being ; for that so-called other must itself 
be, and so be identical with Being. 

" Nor is there ought of distinct ; for the all is self-similar alway ; 
Wherefore the all is unbroken, and Being approacheth to Being. 1 ' 

Such being the case, we return to our starting-point — 

" One and the same are thought, and that whereby there is think- 
ing. 
Never apart from existence wherein it receiveth expression 
Shalt thou discover the action of thinking, for naught is or shall be 
Other besides or beyond the existent." 

Being is, therefore, self-determined. It is, moreover, 
not infinite, or indefinite, as Anaximander and Xeno- 
phanes had held : an inner necessity renders it self-con- 
tained and definitely thinkable. It is the knowing and 
the known One ; self-caused and self-thought. It may be 
compared to a sphere, — it is perfect in its homogeneity 
and continuity and in the regularity and definiteness of 
its limit. Of the phenomenal universe, our knowledge 
of which is mere " opinion," the account given by Par- 
menides is that it was created by the "goddess that 
governeth all things," by the mixture of two entirely 
contrary elements, one of which is like light and fire, 
and the other is dark, dense, and cold. The first-created 
of the gods was Love. The mind of the individual man 

1 This seems to be the first enunciation in the history of Greek Philoso- 
phy of the so-called Law of Excluded Middle. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 5 

is such an organic entity as the body, with its members, 
is ; and the character of the human individual's thought 
depends upon which of the two elements predominates 
in his bodily constitution — mind that is to say, is a 
function of body. 

Result. — Comparing the philosophy of Parmenides 
with that of Xenophanes, we observe, first, that the 
thought theologically and poetically enunciated by the 
latter was, by the former, abstractly and logically pro- 
pounded and developed. Instead of the term God, 
employed by Xenophanes, Parmenides employs the 
term Being ; he does not dogmatically assert but rea- 
sons ; he affirms the existence of, and employs, a method 
of knowledge. We observe, secondly, that although 
Parmenides acknowledges no absolute not-Being, he 
draws sharply a distinction not so drawn by Xeno- 
phanes, between reality and phenomena, Being and rel- 
ative not-Being ; between what is given by " reason," 
the organ of truth and conviction, and what is given 
in "opinion." By virtue of the fact that he was the 
first among the Greek thinkers to state and logically 
deduce the notion of absolute being, he is the first 
purely philosophical thinker among the Greeks ; by vir- 
tue of the fact that he was the first to point out and 
demonstrate the unity of Thought and Being, he is the 
father of idealism. His statement of idealism is, how- 
ever, we must note, incomplete, because Thought, though 
recognized by him as an essential moment of Being, is 
not distinctly recognized as the (for us, and, in fact, abso- 
lute) priiis of Being. 

Life of Zeno. — In some respects the most remarka- 
ble of the Eleatics is Zeno. His birth may be placed at 



1 6 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

about the year 500 B.C. Plato represents him 1 as a fine- 
appearing man of forty when Socrates saw him with 
Parmenides, who was about twenty-five years his senior. 
He was a favorite pupil and, perhaps, the adopted son of 
Parmenides. Though a devotee of speculative science, 
he held not aloof from public affairs ; was, indeed, a 
most enthusiastic patriot and a bitter hater of tyranny. 
There is a story that, when tried for conspiring with 
others against the tyrant of his native city, Elea, lie 
showed his hatred and disdain of the tyrant by biting 
off his tongue and spitting it in his face. The brilliancy 
of his intellect, the genuineness of his moral fibre plainly, 
even now, mark him as one of the select spirits of Gre- 
cian antiquity. 2 

Philosophy of Zeno. — Zeno's main thesis is, in sub- 
stance, Not-Being is not ; hence only Being is. Now 
as Being is one and unchanging, not-Being must be 
conceived as the many and changing. But the notion 
of the many is self-contradictory, and, therefore, false. 
The One, only, is, the Many are not, i.e., multiplicity 
and change are unreal, phenomenal. Against the no- 
tions multiplicity and change he advanced eight argu- 
ments, — four against the former, four against the latter. 3 
The substance of one of the arguments against mult'pli- 
city is as follows : If Being were absolute multiplicity, 
then it must be both infinitely great and infinitely small ; 
for, first, it must have an infinite number of parts, and, 

1 Parmenides, p. 127. 

2 See the life of him by Diogenes Laertius (trans, in Bohn's Class. Lib). 

3 See Mullach's Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Vol. I. pp. 269 
and 270; Zeller's Outlines of the Hist, of Greek Philos. (trans.), pp. 63 and 
64; Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Vol. I. pp. 608-627. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 7 

secondly, each part must be infinitely small, i.e., without 
magnitude. Another of the arguments is, in substance, 
that, if a bushel of grain when shaken out produces a 
sound when it strikes the floor, each grain and part of 
a grain must produce a sound, which is not the fact. 
Against change (of place) one argument is the follow- 
ing : " Motion cannot begin because a body in motion 
cannot arrive at a new place without passing through an 
infinite number of intermediate places " — which is im- 
possible. Another argument against motion is, "The 
flying arrow is at rest ; for it is at every moment only 
in one place." It is always in one place, Zeno argues, 
because time is perfectly continuous — is not to be con- 
ceived as a series of distinct " nows " ; but if we sup- 
pose movement through distinct spaces or places, we 
must suppose distinct times. There is, therefore, no 
motion ; the flying arrow is at rest. 

Result. — If mere multiplicity is the first principle of 
the universe, then there is nothing but an infinity of, so 
to say, particles or points of nothingness ; for the prin- 
ciple of multiplicity, taken as absolute, is not satisfied 
if there be anything that is one and indivisible. But of 
such points of nothingness, infinite in number though 
they be, nothing can be constituted; continuity and 
identity, which are objects of reason, cannot spring from 
infinite discontinuity and multiplicity. Multiplicity is, 
therefore, purely phenomenal : not-Being is not. As 
such, i.e., as a "fact," it is not denied by Zeno. Nor are 
the arguments against motion tantamount to the denial 
of motion as a fact presented to us by sense : it would 
have been no "answer" to Zeno to point to a moving 
object, for he simply denied motion as absolute. If 



1 8 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

motion were absolute, then (absolute) change in Being 
would be possible, which is absurd, because, as Par- 
menides declared, Being is 

" Whole and only-begotten, and moveless and ever enduring." 

Translated into the language of modern theology 
or of modern science Zeno's argument would mean 
"God, only, is ; He is the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever," or " The laws of nature are unalterable." To 
treat the arguments of Zeno merely as word-puzzles or 
even as "fallacies," "material" or "formal," is to miss 
their point. The peculiar method employed by Zeno in 
the above-cited arguments — that of maintaining a posi- 
tion by the demonstration of the inherent absurdity of 
its opposite — was termed the dialectic method ; and be- 
cause of his peculiar mastery in it, he was called the 
inventor of dialectics, though the same method had 
been employed by Xenophanes (to some extent) and 
Parmenides. Zeno gave no account of this method. 1 
Zeno's position, compared with that of Parmenides, is 
indicated with sufficient accuracy by the statement that 
he holds the averse side of the position of which Par- 
menides holds the Averse, the two being in substance 
the same, and that he had a fuller consciousness than 
Parmenides of the significance of method in and for 
itself. Zeno did not, so far as is now known, put forth 
a theory, mythological or other, of the visible universe. 

Melissus. — Of Melissus, who flourished a little later 
than Zeno and wrote a treatise in prose entitled On 

1 This mode of arguing should be carefully discriminated from that of 
overthrowing a position merely by adducing some fact that does not 1> 
immediately in the given position but which tells against it nevertheless. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 19 

Nature, it is sufficient to say that his position was that 

of Parmenides, qualified by the affirmation that Being 

is unlimited in space. This seems to be a relapse 

towards the ^/^-materialism of the Hylicists ; but 

Melissus, while holding this, affirmed the entire oneness 

of Being. Diogenes Laertius states that Melissus was 

satly occupied in political affairs," was c " held in 

t esteem among his fellow-citizens," and, in conse- 

nce, elected admiral by them, and "was admired still 

e on account of his private virtues." 

General Result. — The Eleatic philosophy is twofold 

in character : it is a theory (though an elementary one) 

of knowledge as well as of Being. (It is the earliest 

theory of knowledge.) It is primarily, however, a theory 

of Being, Thought being treated as, primarily, depend- 

upon Being, not Being upon Thought, though the 

are inseparable. It is, therefore, to be classed 

>ng the nature-philosophies, though the term nature 

(riven in this philosophy what is, practically, a new 

rpretation, the Eleatic notion of nature verging on 

of mind. The Eleatic doctrine of Being is, as has 

11 said, that it is one ; of knowledge, that it is a prod- 

or function of reason, Thought and Being being 

anically one. The Eleatic theory is, therefore, osten- 

>iy monistic. Practically, however, it is not quite so. 

intelligible account is given by it of phenomena, the 

lively non-existent ; a fact which, we may here prop- 

y surmise, we shall find to have been discovered and 

luted out by contemporaneous or succeeding thinkers. 

1 there is, of course, the same dualism in their theory 

t knowledge as in their account of Being, for they 



20 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

held reason to be trustworthy and sense to be illusory ; 1 
a view which, also, must have had its consequences 
among contemporaneous or later thinkers. 

§4- 

Heraclitus. 

Life of Heraclitus. — Nearly contemporary with Par- 
menides was Heraclitus of Ephesus, who flourished 
not earlier than 500 B.C., nor later than 450 b.c. He 
belonged to the nobility of the place. He was in tem- 
perament aristocratic, melancholy, and meditative ; and 
gave up public office for contemplative retirement, hold- 
ing the world in contempt. Mostly self-taught and in- 
dependent in his views, he studied and freely criticised 
those of others, and was probably the profoundest of 
the early Greek thinkers. A work of his entitled On 
Nature won for him, by the crudity of its style and, 
also, we may suspect, by the depth and paradoxical 
character of its contents, the sobriquet of The Obscure. 
Diogenes Laertius relates that Socrates, when asked 
what he thought of a certain work of Heraclitus, replied, 
" What I have understood is good ; and so, I think, 
what I have not understood is ; only the book requires 
a Delian diver to get at the meaning of it." 2 

Heraclitus s First Principle. — Heraclitus is some- 
times treated as a Hylicist and Hylozoist. He did, 
it is true, assume a physical principle (fire) and affirmed 
the universal presence of life in matter. The central 

1 It is important here to discriminate between a scepticism that denies, 
or gives up the belief in, the possibility of a knowledge of the real, and a 
scepticism that consists merely in distrusting the "reports of the senses." 

2 Lives of the Philosophers (Bohn's Class. Lib.), p. 65. _ 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 21 

point in his speculations, however, was not the universal 
material source of things, but the universal process of 
things. Emphasizing the aspect of change in Nature, 
he held that existence was an absolute process, a contin- 
ual flux : irdvra %&>pe£, "all things flow," is his real first 
principle. Instead of affirming, as did the Eleatics, 
Only Being is, he affirms or seems to afhrm, Only not- 
Being is ; Becoming or not-Being is the object of his 
thought. But what is Becoming ? Is it mere change ? 
Another of his dicta runs, All is and also is not : Becom- 
ing, that is to say, is the union of Being and not-Being. 
Being and not-Being are involved one in the other. Our 
human bodies, for example, undergo a process of growth 
and decay : we live and die continually, — live because 
we die, die because we live. Moreover, what we call the 
actual death of the body is but the birth of a new life : 
"Both life and death are in our life and our death"; 
" While we live our souls are buried in us, but when we 
die our souls are restored to life." Time — to take 
another example — cannot be conceived as now exist- 
ent or now not. In time as in all reality, continuity 
and discontinuity, Being and not- Being are inseparable. 
Opposite qualities co-exist in the real, not merely in the 
phenomenal, as the Eleatics declared. " Strife is the 
father of all things." "Unite the whole and the not- 
whole, the consentient and the dissentient, the conso- 
nant and the dissonant and there arises one from all, 
all from one." There is a continual conversion of the 
Many into the One, and vice versa. The harmony of 
the One and the Many, which the Pythagoreans asserted 
but did not explain, is brought about through the notion 
of Becoming, — activity, life. 



22 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Physical Doctrine of Heraclitus. — Now the omnipres- 
ent element or medium in which this process is 
realized and which is hardly to be distinguished from 
the process itself is, according to Heraclitus, fire, which 
in its purest form is spirit. By a process subtler than 
the "condensation" of Anaximenes, fire is transmuted 
into air, air into water, water into earth ; air, water, and 
earth being, though "opposites," but stages in the in- 
volution of fire. This is called the "downward way." 
The two "ways " are inseparable or organic members of 
one process. This process must be conceived, not as a 
mechanical process, but as a vital organic process, in 
which opposite forces are held as one. In the vast 
process by which the visible universe is maintained 
there is alternately a kindling and an extinguishing of 
the elemental fire. 

The Soul and Reason. — The human soul is but a 
mode of the universal fire. The dry soul is best ; 
moisture in the soul obscures reason. By respiration 
and the action of the organs of sense, the soul is nour- 
ished with the universal fire. " Souls enter the body 
from a higher state of existence, and after death, when 
they have proved themselves worthy of their privilege, 
they return as daemons into a purer life." 1 Eyes and 
ears are bad witnesses to those who have " barbarous 
souls." The senses deceive by giving the appearance 
of fixedness to things not fixed. The reason is the real 
source of knowledge. By reason man ceases to be a 
dreaming individual and becomes a waking universal. 
It is by participation in the universal reason, the koivos 

1 Zeller's Pre-Socratic Philos., Vol. II. p. 87. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 2$ 

\6yos, that we know and do that which is true and 
right. 

Result. — It is obvious that Heraclitus attained to a 
riper and richer conception of nature than any of his 
predecessors had attained to. The Eleatic notion of 
the One and the Pythagorean notion of the harmony of 
the One and the Many are realized more perfectly in 
the Heraclitean doctrine, in which they are subordinate, 
than in those theories in which they are principal. 
Heraclitus recognizes no phenomenal world, however 
shadowy, as separate from, and irreconcilable to, the 
realm of Being, and the One and the Many are not, in 
his notion, merely in harmony, they are the same thing, 
by virtue of the power of motion, or life, and reason. 1 
And if the material source of things is to be found 
among the " elements" fire, air, earth, and water, cer- 
tainly it must be that which is subtlest and capable of 
the most manifold transformations. There is, even in 
this latest age of the world, beauty in the Pythagorean 
conception, a certain loftiness and splendor in the Elea- 
tic ; but there is infinite vigor and pregnancy in the 
Heraclitic. There does not appear immediately in the 
after-course of Greek speculation an intellectual mid- 
wife — to borrow a Socratic metaphor — skilful enough 
to bring to the birth its entire significance. 

§5- 

The Later Natural Philosophers. — The speculations 
of Heraclitus, the Eleatics, and earlier philosophers, 

1 The philosophy of Heraclitus has been called " the philosophy of the 
logical law of the identity of contradictories." 



24 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

established, practically, certain fundamental points for 
the philosophers whose views we have next to consider 
and who may be called the Later Natural Philosophers 
or Nature-Philosophers. One point was, that there is no 
absolute change, no real "generation" or "decay" : ex 
nihilo nihil fit. Another point was, that there is a 
becoming, nature is a process. A tfiird point, which 
may be regarded as the (imperfect) synthesis of the two, 
was that the process of nature is a mechanical process. 
In place of the monism of the earlier theorists, we shall, 
accordingly, find a more or less distinct dualism, of 
matter and force, of the material world and reason. 
Speculation now practically turns upon the inquiries, 
What causes and maintains the process of nature ? 
What is the character and end of that process •? Of 
these Later Nature-Philosophers, the chief are Empedo- 
cles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and Democritus. 

Life of Empedocles. — Empedocles was a native of 
Agrigentum in Sicily, and lived circa 495-535 b.c. He 
took the active interest usually taken by the early Greek 
philosophers in political affairs, and was a leader of the 
democratic party in his native city. He was not only a 
statesman and a philosopher, but an orator, a poet, a 
physician, a prophet, and a thaumaturgist. His charac- 
ter and personal influence are said to have been similar 
to those of Pythagoras. 

Theory of Nature. — Holding fast to the Eleatic idea 
that generation and decay are impossible, he yet holds, 
in a certain way, to the notion of Becoming ; and at- 
tempts to account for changing nature by the hypothe- 
sis of a continued process of combination and separation 
of certain (supposed) original, imperishable, unchange- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 2$ 

able, purely material elements or "roots," — fire, air, 
water, earth. Fire, air, and water, it has been seen, had 
been separately posited as " principles " by earlier phi- 
losophers. Empedocles was the first who assumed these 
four as the primal elements. Now the question arises 
— and this is the first appearance of such a question in 
the history of Greek philosophy — What is the cause of 
the combination and separation of the elements ? The 
elements we have just seen are purely material; the 
combining and separating forces are Love and Hate, — 
the ancient mythological analogues of the modern scien- 
tific " attraction" and " repulsion." By Love the ele- 
ments are bound indistinguishably together in one all- 
embracing sphere ; Hate penetrating from the outside 
to the centre drives the elements asunder, thus giving 
rise to the world of individual existences. In the eternal 
process of nature, Love and Hate alternately rule. 
Variety in the world of individual existences arises, of 
course, from variety in the combination of elements : 
flesh and blood, for example, are composed of the four 
elements united in equal proportions, whereas bones are 
one-half fire, one-fourth earth, and one-fourth water. 
Animals are formed by the combination by Love of 
parts that existed separately, having sprung out of the 
earth. The monstrosities that were the result of the 
earliest combinations, such as bodies of men united to 
horses' heads, bodies of oxen with human heads, etc.. 
gradually gave way to higher forms, until eventually 
the present mode of generation was established. Empe- 
docles, it thus appears, was, like Anaximander, an 
"evolutionist." 

Theory of Knowledge. — Even knowledge is explained 



26 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

by Empedocles as the result of mixture. Sense-percep- 
tion is the effect of an efflux of particles from external 
bodies entering pores corresponding in size to them, 
in the body of the percipient. In the case of sight 
there is a double efflux, — an efflux from the eye 
as well as from the body perceived, sight being a conse- 
quence of the intermingling of effluences. 1 The efflux 
from the eye is an efflux of particles of water and fire. 
The elements in things are known through like ele- 
ments in us, — earth through earth, water through 
water, etc. Thought also depends, for its character, 
on the character of the mixture of elements. Quick- 
ness and acuteness of perception and thought result 
from mixtures different from those from which their 
opposites result. The psychological organ of truth is 
not perception but reflection. 

Restrit. — The sources and essential character of the 
theory of Empedocles are apparent. Conceptions bor- 
rowed from, or suggested by, the Eleatics, Heraclitus, 
and earlier speculators, are combined to produce what 
is almost a purely mechanical explanation of natural 
phenomena. The system is mechanical because of the 
want of organic conception or affinity between the 
posited original elements and powers of nature. But 
for the anthropomorphic elements, Love and Hate, the 
system would be entirely mechanical. We may reason- 
ably expect to encounter in the history of early Greek 
speculation a system from which such anthropomorphic 
elements are entirely absent. 2 

1 In modern " psychological " phraseology this would mean that sight is 
both " objective " and " subjective." 

2 See p. 32 infra. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 2J 

Life of Anaxagoras. — Anaxagoras was a native of 
Clazomenae in Asia Minor. Though born somewhat 
earlier than Empedocles he flourished a little later. 
Giving up wealth and social position for philosophy, he 
went in early manhood to Athens, and remained there, 
as thinker and teacher, till near the close of his life, a 
period of about fifty years. His sojourn at Athens was 
the beginning of that magnificent course, hereafter to be 
delineated, which philosophy ran there in the most ca- 
pacious intellects of antiquity. Parmenides and Zeno 
may have visited Athens, but Anaxagoras was the first 
philosopher who made that city of culture and individu- 
ality his home and the chief outward abode of philos- 
ophy. His presence in Athens during the period of her 
greatest glory under the statesmanship of his personal 
friend (and disciple), Pericles, was, no doubt, opportune 
for philosophy, and particularly for a system that placed 
in the forefront of the universe vovs, or intelligence. 
Among the pupils of Anaxagoras there were — besides 
Pericles — Euripides and Socrates. Because of the un- 
popularity of his doctrine — he was accused of atheism 
— and his connection with Pericles, he was obliged, 
when the latter fell temporarily into disfavor with the 
Athenian populace, to pay a fine and leave Athens. 
He died at Lampsacus on the Hellespont, 428 B.C., at 
the age of seventy-two. He wrote a work 1 entitled On 
Nature. 

Theory of Nature. — To account for the order and 
beauty of the world Anaxagoras assumes two principles, 
one material, the other spiritual or ^wz'-spiritual. The 
material principle is an infinite medley, a chaos, of an 
infinite number of qualitatively different elements, which 



28 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

he terms crirkpixara, or the " seeds " of things. The ele- 
ments, however, must, though different, be conceived as 
organically the same ; i.e., each element must have in 
it, potentially, all others, for we cannot conceive the 
union of things absolutely different. The spiritual, or 
^z/#.s7-spiritual, principle is just the opposite in nature to 
the material — perfectly " unmixed" and "pure," the 
"finest and purest of all things," an independent, intel- 
ligent power, since we cannot conceive order and beauty 
as the offspring of mere necessity or chance. Out of 
the original mixture, or chaos, the world was formed by 
a rotatory motion produced by the action of the original 
mind, a movement which, beginning at a single point 
and gradually extending, caused a universal separation 
of unlike, and union of like, seeds, the dense and moist 
moving to the centre, the rare and warm to the circum- 
ference of the world. This process of differentiation 
goes on forever, becoming ever more refined. Differ- 
ences in bodies result from differences in the character 
of the seeds that predominate in their constitution. 
From the hypothesis that certain substances, e.g., gold, 
blood, bones, were formed only of seeds like themselves, 
the name homceomerice {pyjoio^ipeiai — like parts) was 
applied by later writers (not by Anaxagoras) to the 
original elements, or " seeds " of things. The earth he 
conceived to be a cylinder resting on the air, in the 
centre of the universe. The sun is not a blessed god, 
as the multitude believe, but an immense glowing mass 
of stone — as large as the Peloponnesus, — one of the 
doctrines, probably, that gave ground for the charge of 
atheism that was brought against him. The moon is 
like the earth and is inhabited. Plants and animals 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 29 

spring from germs communicated to moist or slimy- 
earth by the air and the aether; they have souls, and feel 
pleasure and pain. 

Theory of Mind or Nous (vovs) and of Knowledge. — 
The world-mind has been described as a nature that 
is perfectly "pure" and "unmixed," "the finest and 
purest of all things," and independent of the material 
universe. All derivative minds are essentially the same 
with it, and with one another, differing from it and from 
one another only in degree. Sense-perception, which is 
dependent upon the structure of the bodily organs, is 
not of "like by like," as Empedocles asserted, but of 
"like by unlike," as of heat by cold: that which is 
equally warm with ourselves makes no impression upon 
us. The senses do not afford real knowledge ; that 
comes through reason. Man's highest satisfaction lies 
in the pursuit of wisdom. 

Result. — The mechanicalness that is so conspicuous 
in the theory of Empedocles is less conspicuous here ; 
for there is, in the very essence of the "principles" of 
the system — the "seeds," which, though different, are 
potentially the same and virtually synthesizable, and the 
world-ordering mind, — the beginning of an organic 
conception of the universe. For if chaos be a mass of 
potentially organ izable, though not actually organized 
or articulated elements, it just verges upon mind, which 
is the actually determining, organizing element in the 
universe. The system of Anaxagoras is mechanical, 
therefore, in part because it offers no statement of this 
connection between matter and mind. For another 
reason, also, it fails of being organic and completely 
rational, viz., Anaxagoras's conception of mind was, 



30 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

though fundamentally correct, but rudimentary. A de- 
veloped conception of mind belongs, in fact, to a later 
period in the history of thought. Plato and Aristotle, 
the latter of whom, comparing him with other nature- 
philosophers, likened him to a sober man coming in 
among the drunken, properly enough found fault with 
the theory of Anaxagoras, because in it mind was treated 
as a mere mover of matter. Anaxagoras, as Plato points 
out in his dialogue Phcedo (pp. 97-99), just missed 
grasping fairly the idea of the final cause, or of end- 
determined causation, in nature. 

Leucippus and Democritus, the Atomists ; their Lives. 
— Of Leucippus's life nothing is known. He was the 
originator of the essentials of the theory expounded 
in the writings of Democritus, who was a pupil of his. 
Democritus was born in Abdera in Thrace about the 
year 460 B.C. Possessed of great wealth, he was able 
to gratify to the fullest extent his passion for knowledge, 
which impelled him to travel very extensively in Egypt 
and the East, and, upon his return home, to devote 
himself to philosophical research. He was the most 
learned of the early Greek philosophers, an encyclopae- 
dist, worthy of the admiration freely bestowed upon 
him by the still greater master of knowledges, Aristotle. 
His numerous works, of which only fragments have 
been preserved, were written in prose instead of didac- 
tic verse, such as most of his predecessors had employed. 
They were greatly admired among the ancients for their 
style as well as their doctrine. Democritus lived about 
a century. 

Theory of Nature. — M.rj fiaWov to Bev 7) rl /jlt) Sev 
dvai : " No more is Thing [Being] than no-Thing [not- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 3 I 

Being]," says Democritus, recognizing the respective 
claims of the Eleatics and Heraclitus. This implies 
that Democritus accepted, and attempted to explain, 
change as a fact. To do the latter, he conceived Being 
to consist of innumerable eternal, infinitesimal, movable, 
material elements, which he termed aro/jua (indivisibles), 
i.e., atoms. With Being thus constituted (termed the 
"full," "plenum") is coeval not-Being, empty space 
(the " void " ). Thing and no-Thing, the "full" and the 
"void" constitute absolute reality : all else is phenome- 
nal. Unlike the four elements of Empedocles and the 
"seeds" of Anaxagoras, they are not qualitatively, but 
only quantitatively, different, — different as regards fig- 
ure, size, weight, order, and position. The world of 
individual existences is produced by the eternal falling (!) 
and collision of the atoms, due to an inherent necessity. 
By a rotatory motion thus generated the heavenly bodies 
were produced. The qualitative as well as quantitative 
properties of things depend merely upon the figure, size, 
weight, arrangement, position, and number of the atoms 
constituting them. Though atoms are imperishable, the 
bodies composed of them are not. 

Theory of the Soul, of Knowledge, and of the Good. 
— Soul, or spirit, in the external world and in man, is 
composed of fine, round, smooth, fiery atoms. The ex- 
halation and inhalation of these is the source of life in 
the human body. In the brain the motion of such 
atoms produces thought, in the heart anger, in the liver 
desire. Sense-perceptions are the effects of impressions 
made upon the organs of sense by particles of air set in 
motion by effluences from objects. The sensation of 
sight, however, is a resultant of the meeting of emana- 



32 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

tions from the eye with incoming impulses. Dreams 
are effects of enfeebled and distorted images (etBcoXa) 
that have found their way from objects and persons to 
our minds. The character and degree of trustworthi- 
ness of sense-perceptions depend upon the character of 
external impressions. Sense gives conflicting reports 
and is deceptive. Thought, which is a result of a sym- 
metrical motion of atoms, is alone the source of knowl- 
edge; The true method in knowledge is to proceed 
from the known to the unknown. Ethically considered, 
man's real being lies in nobility of soul : his real good 
is happiness, which is not sensuous enjoyment but peace 
and contentment springing from measure and modera- 
tion in living. The highest happiness is the pleasure of 
knowledge. The seat of morality is not in the act per- 
formed but in the will. Democracy is the best form of 
government. The wise and good are citizens of the 
whole world. The popular gods are beings in the air 
similar to man but far higher in degree. The truly 
divine element in the world is the fiery atom or totality 
of fiery atoms. 1 

Result. — The theory of the Atomists is doubtless 
the most perfect of the merely mechanical, non-anthro- 
pomorphic, 2 theories of nature of the early Greek phi- 
losophers : it has a simplicity and an inner consistency 
not possessed by any other. The conceptions of quan- 
tity and natural necessity, which are the ruling concep- 
tions of the theory, are harmonious and easily grasped, 
and seem all-sufficient, until problems of soul and life 
are confronted, when it becomes necessary to recognize 

1 See Zeller's Prc-Socratic Philosophy, Vol. II. pp. 207-321. 

2 See supra, p. 26. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 33 

mind as an absolute. The Atomists are unable to 
derive, theoretically, knowledge and feeling from the 
nature and motion of atoms, and the conception of 
natural necessity is poor in content compared with 
that of mind. This being the case, while in one direc- 
tion the Atomistic philosophy is the most highly devel- 
oped of all the early nature-philosophies, the philoso- 
phy of Anaxagoras is, on the whole, nearer the truth : 
the philosophy of nature is naturally and necessarily 
linked with that of mind. It should be noted before 
leaving Democritus that he entered more largely than 
did any of his predecessors into anthropological and 
ethical questions, topics belonging to the philosophy 
of man as distinct from merely physical nature. In 
this respect he has greater affinity with the philoso- 
phers of the next period than any of the very early 
Greek philosophers. 

§6. 

General Character of the First Period in the History 
of Greek Philosophy. — We have now, as will presently 
appear, finished the first great epoch in the history 
of Greek philosophy. Before going further we must 
briefly sum up its characteristics. As to subject-matter, 
thought has in this epoch been occupied chiefly with 
external nature, — man and the supernatural receiving 
but little consideration. As to its method, it has been 
speculative, hypothetical, and deductive rather than 
observational, inductive, "scientific," — rather than be- 
cause, in any case, something must be " given" or 
assumed at the start, and where this is true, there is 
room for rough induction at least. The greatest achieve- 



34 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

ment in method is, doubtless the " dialectic " of the 
Eleatics and the Heraclitic "unity of opposites," which 
are "possessions for all time." Of these we shall hear 
again, farther on. Finally, as to the general attitude of 
thought in this epoch, there has been a change from 
simple unsophisticated confidence in the power of the 
mind to know nature to a kind of scepticism, — scepti- 
cism, indeed, not with reference to the scope of reflec- 
tion but with reference to sense-perception. This scep- 
ticism reached its highest degree in the Atomists, with 
whom even the power of thought reached the minimum, 
i.e., the power to know just the "void," "atoms," and 
the motion of atoms. This seems to be the natural 
consequence of regarding reality as external to mind, 
and, viewed as such, may be considered one of the best 
lessons to be gathered from the study of very early 
Greek speculation. A higher thought, the obverse of 
this, is virtually contained in the theory of Anaxagoras, 
the reality and unity of all things in mind. 



II. RATIONALISM. 

§7- 

The Sophists. — There arose in Greece in the fifth 
century B.C. a class of persons to whom, on account of 
their peculiar pretensions to wisdom, was especially ap- 
plied (and generally with opprobrium) the term " Soph- 
ist," this term having been previously applied to any 
who were preeminent among men in the knowledge of 
human affairs. For certain reasons, somewhat pecu- 
liar (as we shall see), these men must be included 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 35 

among philosophers. The leading Sophists were Pro- 
tagoras of Abdera, Gorgias of Leontini, Hippias of E lis, 
and Prodicus of Ceos. Others among the most eminent 
Sophists are those named Polus, Thrasymachiis ', and 
Euthydemns. 

Life of Protagoras. — Protagoras of Abdera in Thrace 
{circa 490-415 B.C.) was first in Athens about the 
middle of the fifth century B.C. He was the first of 
the Sophists to take a fee for instruction given by him, 
— a practice that was condemned by Socrates and 
Plato. Protagoras, however, as it would appear, charged 
only a moderate fee and deserved not the contempt 
with which the money-getting Sophists after him were 
richly rewarded. He was a man of learning, character, 
and intelligence — whom even Plato did not always 
sneer at — and was much sought after. He had the 
" courage of his convictions" and held and taught doc- 
trines, religious and political, which caused him to be 
condemned as an atheist, and his works (one of which 
was on Truth) to be publicly burned. He is said to 
have prepared laws for one of the Athenian colonies. 
He was an embryo etymologist and a rhetorician ; he 
affirmed, however, that rhetorical art consists in 
" making the worse appear the better reason." 

Theory of Protagoras. — "The measure of all things," 
says Protagoras, "is man": "of things that are, that 
they are ; of things that are not, that they are not." 
To this dictum, which is in itself equivocal and may 
mean that the human mind is adequate to the at- 
tainment of absolute objective truth or that what is 
true to one individual is true for him only, Protagoras 
gave the latter meaning, and thus human knowledge 



2)6 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

was reduced by him to a "knowledge" of subjective 
appearances. This doctrine, it will be perceived, is 
simply the Heraclitean doctrine (superficially inter- 
preted) of the eternal flux of things in general trans- 
ferred from nature to man. Strictly applied, it would 
signify not only that no two persons think or perceive 
the same thing, but that no person thinks or feels twice 
alike ; it would mean also that there is and can be no 
real fixed object of knowledge. Contradictory opinions 
are equally true ; right and wrong are merely matters 
of subjective opinion ; the state is a compact based on 
force. The existence of the gods is uncertain, — the 
subject being too difficult and life being too short 
to admit of our learning anything certain about the 
matter. 1 

Life of Gorgias. — Gorgias of Leontini in Sicily 
{circa 480-395 B.C.) began teaching in Athens about 
the year 427 B.C., and acquired as a teacher of rhetoric 
"greater celebrity than any man of his time." His rep- 
utation as a rhetorician — he was an orator as well as a 
teacher of rhetoric — seems to have overshadowed his 
character as an acute thinker. 

Theory of Gorgias. — In a work entitled On Nature 
or the Non-Existent Gorgias denied objective reality. 
He argued : — Nothing is ; if anything were, it would be 
unknowable ; and if knowable, not explicable in words. 
One branch of his argument to prove that nothing is 
is substantially as follows : — If anything were, it must 
be derivative or eternal. It cannot be derivative, for, as 

1 The doctrine of the "relativity of knowledge," it is thus to be seen, 
is quite ancient. Plato's criticism of it, which will be cited later on, is 
as good now as it was when first made. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 37 

the Eleatics maintained, there is no becoming. It can- 
not be eternal, for it would then be infinite ; but the 
infinite is nowhere, for it can neither be in itself nor in 
any other, and what is nowhere is not. To prove that 
if anything were it would be unknowable, Gorgias 
argues that thought and being are incommensurable, 
since if they be not, whatever is thought must be, as, 
for example, a contest with chariots, on the sea. Fi- 
nally, knowledge, even if possible, could not be commu- 
nicated because the sign of an idea and the idea itself 
have no natural necessary connection. 1 

Result. — The method of Gorgias is the dialectic of 
Zeno, and his sceptical conclusions seem to flow from 
the fact that he treats conceptions that are valid only in 
relation to certain others that are correlative with them, 
as if they were themselves absolute, and excluded those 
others, e.g., the conceptions of being and not-being, one 
and many, thought and being, infinite and finite, word 
and idea. One has no meaning absolutely out of rela- 
tion to many ; we cannot assume that only the one is. 
The same holds true of being and not-being, infinite and 
finite, word and idea. The argumentation of Gorgias 
points, by the absurdity of its result, to the conclusion 
that what is is a union of opposites, and we are, just on 
this account, indebted to him ; holding to the principle 
of identity (not of opposites but of each thing in and 
by itself) he forces us to acknowledge the dualistic 
character of consciousness. Gorgias, however, seems 
to have had no higher than a purely sceptical aim in so 
doing. The real lesson of his argumentation is that the 

1 See Zeller's Pre-Socratic Philosophy, Vol. II. pp. 452-455. 



38 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

truth is not simple and abstract but complex and con- 
crete. 

Hippias and Prodicus. — Hippias of Elis and Prodi- 
cus of Ceos were younger contemporaries of Protagoras 
and Gorgias. Because of the extent and variety of 
his learning, Hippias was styled " the polymathist." 
He declared that law is a tyrant compelling men to 
do many things contrary to nature, a saying that reflects 
a tendency then existing in Athens towards social 
and political disintegration. Prodicus was a moralist, 
and seems to have been considered by Socrates 
as a sage adviser of youth, but no dialectician, or 
scientific thinker. In the Second Book of Xeno- 
phon's Memorabilia there is to be found an allegory 
that Socrates is represented as borrowing from the 
"Wise Prodicus." In this the hero Hercules is pic- 
tured as exposed to the respective charms of two 
female personages of opposite character, — Pleasure 
and Virtue. The allegory was greatly admired among 
the ancients. Prodicus is said to have investigated the 
subject of synonyms. 

The Sophists as a Class ; Result. — Strictly speak- 
ing, the Sophists should, perhaps, be regarded as phi- 
losophers only in a negative way : for they were interested 
primarily not in universal science but in individualistic 
culture ; they were moulders of men rather than inves- 
tigators and expounders of ideas. They were shrewd 
enough to see, however, that the pretension to the 
possession of wisdom which the professional educator 
necessarily puts forward must be supported by at least 
a modicum of philosophy as such. Very much of the 
real thing would doubtless have hindered, instead of 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 39 

promoting, the realization of their main purpose, which 
seems to have been to fashion what Plato calls the 
" narrow, keen, little legal mind." x Their principal busi- 
ness was the fitting of ambitious youths for political ca- 
reers in a democracy. The young Athenian who must 
distinguish himself before a body of dicasts, or judges, 
was supposed to need all possible skill in rhetoric and 
dialectic, and the appearance of being wise on all sub- 
jects, particularly those relating directly to social and po- 
litical matters ; the young Athenian required, and the 
Sophist prepared himself to teach, not the philosophy of 
the schools, which he considered merely as a juvenile dis- 
cipline, but a " practical " philosophy. But the Sophist, 
though not a genuine philosopher, did something to pre- 
pare the way for philosophy. He was, as Grote says, 
the " professor " or public teacher ; by him " higher edu- 
cation " was offered to Grecian youth ; to him the young 
man who in the schools had been trained in gymnastics, 
had gotten the cream of the poets and moralists, had 
learned to recite fittingly from their works and to take 
part in dramatic choruses, went for instruction in " philos- 
ophy," including mathematics, astronomy, dialectics, ora- 
tory, and criticism. And the Sophist not only gave in- 
struction ; he stimulated his pupils, if not to profound 
inquiry, at least to the practice of analysis and criticism 
before which merely superficial traditional views and 
customs were not always strong enough to stand, — in 
other words to something like free and independent, if 
not sober, thinking. In saying this, we do not forget that 
the practices of the later Sophists were not above mere 

1 Thecetetus, p. 175 (Jowett's trans.). 



40 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

verbal trifling and charlatanry. 1 The philosophical find- 
ings of the Sophists, though slender from a positive 
point of view, were yet, in certain respects, marked and 
important. They were certainly peculiar. If we com- 
pare them as regards subject of speculation, method, or 
point of view with those we have already considered, we 
shall discover what proves to be the beginning of a 
new epoch in the history of Greek speculation. Not 
Nature but Man is the principal theme of the Sophists ; 
they profess and practise everywhere a certain method 
(the dialectical or qitasi-dialectical) ; and their mental 
attitude, instead of being that of confidence or scientific 
circumspectness, is, wholly and on principle, sceptical, as 
is well illustrated even in the very title of Gorgias's 
work, On Nature, or the Non-Existent. And it will 
appear as we proceed that their successors are very 
largely occupied in developing and transcending their 
point of view, correcting and further perfecting their 
method, and investigating their theme. In its psycho- 
logical aspect the philosophy of the Sophists was pure 
sensationalism ; in its ethical, pure individualism, the 
philosophy of mere " private judgment," "private right." 
As Hegel puts it, — the Sophists introduced the princi- 
ple of subjectivity into philosophy. 

1 For the most extended and authoritative accounts of the Sophists see 
Grote's Hist, of Greece, Chap. LXVIL; The Journal of Sacred and Clas- 
sical Philology, Vols. I., II., and III., arts, by E. M. Cope; 'letter's Pre- 
Socratic Philosophy, Vol. II. pp. 462-469. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 41 

§8- 

Socrates. 1 

The Sophists and Socrates. — The philosophical suc- 
cessor of the Sophists, though a contemporary of the 
earliest and chief ones, is Socrates. Like them, he 
maintained a sceptical attitude towards the physical 
speculations of the early nature-philosophers, and was 
driven, in part at least, by the unsatisfactoriness of those 
speculations, to the almost exclusive contemplation of 
human nature. But to him "man" in the Protagorean 
dictum meant man not merely in his individual, but also 
and primarily in his universal, nature, man the thinker 
and the natural participator in the life of his fellow-men. 
For the showy rhetoric and false dialectic of the Soph- 
ists he sought to substitute scientific method, adequate 
to fact and universal truth ; and for their doctrine of 
external pleasure and utility, the idea of inherent justice 
and happiness. Like the Sophists, he questioned exist- 
ing beliefs and institutions — theological, ethical, politi- 
cal — but he sought to discover and preserve their 
universal element, or truth. As to his external methods, 
neither love of publicity or popular favor, nor ostenta- 
tion of learning or skill in words, nor any desire to reap 
pecuniary reward, had any part in them. In a word, he 
sought the " simple truth " : in the spirit of the truth he 
sought the truth first of all, in its own proper form, uni- 
versality and accessibility to all intelligence. What 
Hegel calls the principle of subjectivity was, as intro- 
duced and employed by the Sophists, largely an empty 

1 See especially Zeller's Socrates and the Socratic Schools (trans, from 
Zeller's Die Geschichte der Philos. der Griecheri). 



42 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

form ; Socrates gave to it a definite, full, and enduring 
content. 

Special Sources of Information regarding Socrates. 
— Socrates wrote no philosophical treatise. What is 
known of him and his teachings has been learned 
chiefly from the writings of Xenophon, Plato, and Aris- 
totle. Owing to the discrepancies between the presen- 
tations of Xenophon and of Plato, there arises a question 
as to which of the two affords the better view of Socra- 
tes and his philosophizing. Xenophon's superiority, so 
far as he possesses any, is due to his evident historical 
intent. It has been urged, however, that he wrote 
largely as an apologist, that he lacked the speculative 
insight necessary for the appreciation at its full value 
of the Socratic philosophizing, and that he has pictured 
Socrates regarded as a pattern of manhood, rather 
than Socrates the speculative inquirer. Plato's pre- 
sentation, on the other hand, though undoubtedly an 
idealization, is, in the earlier dialogues, sufficiently faith- 
ful to external fact, and probably represents, more truly 
than the Xenophontic, the spirit, method, and tendency, 
if not the outward doctrines and circumstances, of the 
Socratic philosophizing : the student who is especially 
interested in the continuity and development of Greek 
philosophy will, no doubt, derive, as regards Socrates, 
more satisfaction from Plato than from Xenophon, for 
the simple reason that Plato's mature views were shaped 
with reference to the whole course of Greek thought 
preceding him, being or containing, therefore, the devel- 
opment of Socratic as well as other earlier doctrines. 

Life of Socrates. — Socrates was born near Athens, 
about the year 469 B.C., his parents being Sophroniscus, 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 43 

a sculptor, and Phasnarete, a midwife. Of his early 
years nothing is known, save that he must have received 
the usual education in gymnastics, poetry, and music. 
He was self-instructed in geometry and astronomy ; and 
doubtless heard the lectures of some of the Sophists, 
with whom, in all probability, he frequently measured 
dialectical swords. It is conjectured that with some 
regular instruction or other assistance from others, he 
made a special study of the theories of the Pythago- 
reans, the Eleatics, Heraclitus, and Anaxagoras. If he 
really did so, he undoubtedly formed original opinions 
of them, and regarded much in them as problematical 
and futile. It is sometimes said that he followed for a 
while his father's occupation, and that a work of his, 
"representing the Graces attired, was standing at the 
entrance to the Acropolis" as late as 150 a.d. Not 
long after he was thirty years of age he entered upon 
what he regarded as a divine calling, that of a seeker of 
wisdom and searcher of men. He professed to know 
only his own ignorance ; to be, not a teacher, but an intel- 
lectual " midwife." In this vocation he spent most of the 
remaining forty years of his life ; but instead of travel- 
ling extensively, as did most of his predecessors in phi- 
losophy, and of affecting a learned cosmopolitanism, as 
did some of the Sophists, he remained continuously at 
Athens, with the exception of three or four intervals 
when he was absent on a holiday trip or with the army. 
His astonishing indifference to hardship while in mili- 
tary service, his bravery, his self-forgetfulness, his sagac- 
ity, and, withal, his periods of rapt meditation, are for- 
ever memorable. Public office he cared less for than 
did any philosopher who had lived before him, and 



44 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

accepted it only once, and then not till near the close 
of his life and only from a sense of duty. Once when 
in office, and again when merely a private citizen, he 
defied tyranny by refusing to violate at its bidding the 
law of the state. Standing aloof from participation in 
political affairs, he held firmly and, as he declared, patri- 
otically, to his calling ; and in the pursuit of this he 
might be found in the gymnasium, the market-place, the 
workshop, conversing with boys, men, and women, of all 
sorts and conditions, putting to them keen questions, 
and quickening the pulse of moral and intellectual life. 
He was concerned almost as little about his own family 
affairs as about affairs of state ; and if Xanthippe was 
really the scolding wife that tradition represents her to 
have been, she certainly had occasion for so being. 
Socrates was, in fact, so absorbed in his calling that he 
neglected to exercise common prudence not only for his 
family, but for himself. It was food and raiment to him 
to probe the conceit and foolish ignorance of men, to 
search their consciences and expand their shrivelled 
individualities ; in short, to awaken them to the life of 
true self-consciousness. In doing this he made them, 
now his friends and helpers, now his bitter enemies, but 
always, — frequently in spite of themselves, — his en- 
lightened pupils. It was no part of his business or pur- 
pose to fill the ears of men with a specious wisdom, and 
to send them away self-complacent and ready to appear 
wise for a price ; it was not primarily his business or 
purpose to inform those with whom he conversed, but to 
render them thoughtful, critical, and, if need were, even 
sceptical. He became an object of ridicule and hatred 
to the lovers of the old ways and times, and was, by the 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 45 

poet Aristophanes, in his comedy of The Clouds, satirized 
as a Sophist and a charlatan of the worst description. 
At last, certain of the " conservatives," exasperated at 
seeing themselves and their favorite institutions ex- 
posed to the light of truth by Socrates and by others 
whom he had stimulated to think, formally charged him 
with discarding the national gods, introducing new gods, 
and corrupting the youths of Athens. His defense was 
bold and sharply critical, and he was (though by only a 
small majority) condemned to be, according to law, im- 
prisoned, heavily fined, or banished ; and when he refused, 
somewhat haughtily indeed, to acknowledge any guilt, 
and claimed, on the contrary, that he ought to be pub- 
licly entertained in the Prytaneum, or City Home, as a 
benefactor to the state, he was by a majority of eighty 
votes adjudged worthy of death. He went to prison, 
and, after a delay of thirty days, during which, partly, 
as it would seem, from pride, but mostly from the spirit 
and habit of obedience to regularly constituted authority, 
he scornfully refused a proffered opportunity of escape, 
he suffered the penalty by drinking hemlock (399 B.C.). 
The moral sublimity of his last hours appears from 
Plato's dialogue Phcedo. 

The Personality of Socrates and its Relation to the 
Subsequent History of Philosophy. — Of the personality 
of Socrates, which seems to have satisfied Greek notions 
of completeness and symmetry of character in every item 
but one, namely, as regards harmony between exterior 
appearances and interior reality (for Socrates was not 
handsome in aspect), it is necessary to say only so much 
here as will direct attention to three aspects of it that 
appear to bear special relation to his doctrines, to have 



46 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

particularly influenced his contemporaries, presenting to 
his followers (according to their various capacities) ideals 
of mental and moral excellence, and exemplifications of 
various portions of his doctrines, and thus to have deter- 
mined in large measure the subsequent course of philos- 
phy in its history. It is, probably, to the character 
quite as much as to the teaching of Socrates that we 
must look for the source of the explanation of the effects 
of the Socratic philosophizing, and hence of the influ- 
ence of Socrates in the history of philosophy. In the 
first place, then, may be noticed his critical insight and 
analytic faculty, which enabled him to understand at a 
glance and expose plainly to view, if need were, the in- 
ward condition of those about him. It was the pure 
genius of inquiry and discovery directed, not to external 
things, but to the things of the mind and conscience. 
This appears in almost all the reported conversations of 
Socrates with his contemporaries ; and there is evidence 
of it in the fact that Socrates made possible, or it may 
almost be said, discovered two such intellects as Plato 
and Aristotle, not to mention, individually, at this 
point, certain acute minds among the so-called Lesser 
Socratics, of whom we shall have to speak hereafter. In 
the second place, we notice his moral vigor and equi- 
poise, the balance of strong emotions and animal faculties 
under the rule of a superb will. Socrates, generally and 
on principle, practised self-restraint, was even abste- 
mious ; and, on the other hand, he at times far outdid 
his fellows in convivial indulgence, but without losing 
self-control. Socrates, the abstemious, was the ideal of 
one class of philosophers ; Socrates, the easy master 
of self, the ideal of another. In the third place, and 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 47 

finally, there was his " daemon," or warning voice, and 
the ever-present consciousness of the supernatural. Of 
the real nature of this it is difficult to form a satisfactory 
opinion. Socrates himself did not identify it with reason 
or with conscience, he did not attribute to it a scien- 
tific character or importance. Nor, on the other hand, 
does he seem to have viewed it as a familiar spirit, an 
attendant personality. It was to him, rather, an inner 
oracle, which, instead of giving him a standard of truth 
or rule of life, warned and restrained him on particular 
occasions. 1 To the general mission of his life it seems 
to have been related only in so far as it gave increased 
vitality to the idea or feeling of subjectivity or close re- 
lation to an inner reality. Especially did it hold him 
aloof from public affairs, thus contravening the whole 
spirit of Greek life ; and it helped to add internal signifi- 
cance to what had hitherto been too much a matter of 
external observance, namely, piety and the religious life. 
In the eyes of those about him he was by it rendered 
more sacred and more authoritative as a teacher ; they 
felt that in their converse with him they held commun- 
ion with a seer and a man of God. 2 

Philosophy of Socrates. — Coming now to the Socratic 
philosophy, or, more correctly speaking, since Socrates 
framed no system, — the Socratic philosophizing, — we 
have to notice its spirit, its method, its content, or doc- 
trines, and its general character and result. 

1 Xenophon's Memorabilia, Bk. I. ch. I.; Bk. IV. ch. 8. 

2 On Socrates's personality, see particularly, Xenophon's Memorabilia 
(especially at the end) and Plato's Symposium. Schwegler's account is 
brief, comprehensive, and very forcible. See his Handbook of the History 
of Philosophy (Stirling's trans.), pp. 39, 41. 



4o GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Spirit of the Socratic Philosopliizing. — Regarding the 
spirit of the Socratic philosophizing, it is to be remarked, 
in the first place, that it was, as has been already stated, 
in an important sense and a marked degree, sceptical. 
He freely criticised prevailing beliefs, customs, and in- 
stitutions. He discredited the early physical specula- 
tion on the ground that it was unprofitable, and even 
impious. 1 He encouraged the study of geometry and 
astronomy, for example, only in so far as they served 
the most utilitarian ends. He discredited the " wisdom " 
of the Sophists without always putting forward palpable 
and positive doctrines in its stead. He discredited, if 
we may say so, himself, asserting that he knew only 
that he knew nothing. He made no pretension to be- 
ing a teacher at all, not to say a teacher of philosophy. 2 
It was, indeed, not without apparent reason that he was 
considered by some of his contemporaries as a Sophist, 
or even worse than a Sophist. Superficially regarded, 
at least, Socrates was one of the most pronounced nega- 
tivists of his age. And if we look below the surface for 
what was positive in him, we shall find it, not in the 
positing of an apxv of all existence, but in his affirmation 
of the necessity and all-sufficingness of self-knowledge 
for the practical purposes of human life, in his love of 
true manhood, and in his assumption that the essence, 
or, rather, essences of things, can be expressed in a 
definition valid for all human intelligences. The 
position of Socrates was equivocal ; he knew that he 
did not know, 3 and yet he felt that he had a deeper 

1 Xenophon's Memorabilia, Bk. I. ch. I, and Bk. IV. ch. 7. 

2 Ibid., Bk. I. ch. 2. 

8 Plato's Apology, p. 21. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 49 

sense of reality than any other man of his age. And 
this brings us to a second element in the spirit of the 
Socratic philosophizing, namely, the profound irony that 
pervades much of it. This is not that playful and sar- 
castic irony that appears immediately on the surface 
and belongs rather to the external manner and method 
of Socrates ; that habit of pretending to be ignorant 
in order the better to draw out or put to confusion a 
pupil or disputant. It was, the rather, a certain equivo- 
cality of speech begotten of the consciousness of the 
possession of superior insight and of the existence of a 
gulf between himself and his hearers. It was the irony 
of his situation, and did not proceed from humor or whim. 
When he professed ignorance, — though, from one point 
of view he spoke the literal truth, for he had a deeper 
insight than he could give adequate and scientific utter- 
ance to, — he seemed to be giving the lie in words to 
the well-known effects of his manner and teaching, his 
well-known power over men's minds. This was some- 
times perplexing and exasperating to his associates, and 
more than anything else, perhaps, was the cause of his 
death. Thirdly : This irony was softened in a measure 
by a large geniality (proceeding from bodily and spirit- 
ual health) — by what, in its superficial aspect, has been 
termed by Hegel and others after him "Attic urbanity," 1 
but seems to be nothing more nor less than love of true 
selfhood, regard for essential human nature. If, indeed, 
the leading idea of the teaching of Socrates is, as we 
shall see, the prime importance of self-knowledge, a 
large element in its spirit is self-love or the love of the 
true self, very like what in recent years has been termed 

1 Hegel's Geschichte der Philosophie, Vol. II. p. 50. 



50 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the " enthusiasm of humanity." The Greeks, gener- 
ally, were lovers and admirers not of humanity in gen- 
eral, but of Greek humanity ; Socrates was broader in 
his insights and sympathies than his fellows were. But, 
finally, the principal element in the spirit of the Socratic 
philosophizing was a love of the truth, — a love rooted 
in a profound sense of reality and a pretty clear insight 
into the fundamental form of truth. This was, no doubt, 
qualified by his attitude toward the existing philosophy 
of nature and his predilection for man; and Socrates 
was, consequently, not a philosopher in the fullest sense 
of the term ; he was an ethical inquirer. But within 
the sphere of human interests he never for long nor in 
any essential regard turned aside from the search for 
truth for its own sake. 

The Socratic Method. — As to the method of the 
Socratic philosophizing, we must observe that it was 
not grounded upon the conception of any fully conceived 
principle of all existence, and that, on the other hand, 
it was not mere subjective groping after the "truth." 
It was not merely a logical mode of procedure but was 
also pedagogical. It was a method of bringing into 
consciousness, by any and every true psychological ex- 
pedient, clearly and effectively, true conceptions. Such 
being the case, it is chiefly a necessity of exposition 
merely that warrants the separation here of the spirit 
and the method of this philosophizing. Logically re- 
garded, the Socratic method was a compound of sim- 
ple induction and definition — " two improvements in 
science which one might justly ascribe to Socrates " * — 
and reasoning upon the principle of analogy. Socrates, 

1 Aristotle's Metaphysics, Bk. XIII. ch. 4. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 5 I 

Xenophon tells us, 1 was always stimulating his compan- 
ions to inquire into the essence or nature of things, and 
to class them properly. He did not, however, frame a 
systematic theory of logical (or pedagogical) processes 
or method. But, again, the Socratic " method " was a 
process, the outcome of which depended upon insight, 
sympathy, tact, quite as much as upon logic. It was 
an ethical conference, the presiding spirit of which was 
the love of the truth, intellectual and moral. Informal 
conversation was the natural outward aspect of it, both 
on account of the state of the Greek mind and Greek 
society and on account of the character of the truth 
(chiefly ethical) that was the subject of the Socratic 
inquiries. Crude individualism had begun to prevail ; 
interchange of opinion was necessary and natural ; the 
Greeks were a social, talkative people ; the raw material 
for ethical science or edification had to be gathered and 
wrought up by dialogue (whence "dialectic"). And, we 
may observe in passing, the truth that was in Grecian 
life must have been brought to life and made effective 
in the Socratic conferences, for at them were present 
some of the very flower of that life : Euripides, Xenophon, 
Pericles the Younger, Critias, Alcibiades, Phaedo, Chaere- 
phon, Plato, Euclid, and others, most of whom came to 
Socrates "not," to quote Xenophon, "that they might 
become public speakers in the assembly or the courts, 2 
but that they might become noble and good, capable of 
discharging properly their duties to their families, their 
servants, their relatives, their friends, the state, and 

1 Memorabilia, Bk. IV. ch. 5. 

2 See above, § 7, p. 39. 



52 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

their fellow-countrymen." x Some of them, as Plato 
and Euclid, came, no doubt, for intellectual training 
a l so — to understand and catch, if possible, that won- 
derful mastery of conceptions which made Socrates' the 
king of dialectic. Now, in these conferences with fresh, 
earnest, active minds — and some not fresh, active, and 
earnest — Socrates delighted to practise what he was 
pleased to call his maieutic or obstetric art, — his art of 
bringing ideas or conceptions to the birth, for he saw 
that the minds of the Grecian youths were in labor. In 
the practice of this art he assumed that truth is native 
to the mind, — not to be poured into it, but, the rather, 
to be drawn out of it. 2 Now, sometimes, he feigned, 
the ideas that he by his art brought to the birth were 
not "worth keeping and rearing," and must be "exposed" 
in real Spartan fashion, the only important consequence 
of the "birth" being increased self-knowledge on the 
part of those who had been relieved of the ideas with 
which their minds had been pregnant. Sometimes, 
however, the ideas were sound and vigorous, and, if well 
cared for, might be reared into something worth the 
trouble of rearing them. The Socratic dialectic — for, 
as has been intimated, the dialogue became dialectic 
— was, accordingly, twofold, destructive and construc- 
tive. On the whole it was, perhaps, more frequently 
the former than the latter, with a net result, however, 
of what was positive and enduring ; as the one fact, 
Plato, man and philosopher, is sufficient to prove. 3 And 

1 Memorabilia, Bk. I. ch. 2. 

2 See Plato's Meno, pp. 81-83. 

3 If Critias and Alcibiades turned out badly we are obliged to assume 
that it was hardly in them to do otherwise, whoever had been their master. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 53 

if we look more closely into the nature and effect of the 
Socratic dialectic, we find that the majority of those who 
were, willingly or unwillingly to themselves, subjected to 
it were, in the beginning, unripe for the perception of the 
naked truth : they could not appreciate logical distinc- 
tions, pure and simple, nor could they understand fact. 
They were filled with false sentiments and opinions ; 
some of them were stuffed with the learning of the 
Sophists and were full of conceit. Before they could be 
brought to the perception and appreciation of positive 
and constructive truth they must be relieved of their 
ignorance, false sentiment, and conceit. They must be 
encouraged in their right opinions and their keen appe- 
tite for knowledge. These services Socrates could per- 
form for them thoroughly and well. The young man 
who was confident that he was just, and understood what 
justice was, lost confidence in himself and his ideas of 
justice, after being compelled to contradict himself sev- 
eral times within a few breaths ; and he simply desired 
to know himself and how to make himself capable of 
understanding what he had in vain long labored to un- 
derstand. Such is a case, reported by Xenophon, 1 of 
the use of destructive dialectic and its effect. In dialec- 
tic of this sort a false general statement was overthrown 
by being shown to be inconsistent with an admitted 
general truth or well-known particular facts. In the 
opposite process, the constructive dialectic, some truth 
or right opinion held by the learner was confirmed, or 
some new truth was brought to light ; induction, defini- 

1 Memorabilia, Bk. IV. ch. 2. Perhaps the happiest example of the 
Socratic dialectic, destructive and constructive, is given in the Meno of 
Plato. 



54 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

tion, and reasoning by analogy constituting the logical 
elements of the process. On the whole, the most valua- 
ble result of the Socratic dialectic was the begetting, in 
those who took part in the conferences, of the spirit of 
Socrates himself, — modesty, the habit of circumspec- 
tion, a sense of the differences in things, an intelligent 
love of the truth and of wholeness or integrity of mind 
and character ; what, in short, may be termed the phil- 
osophic spirit. 

The Doctrines of Socrates ; their General Character. — 
The doctrines of Socrates, it has already been intimated, 
were chiefly ethical in content. Whatever there may 
have been — and doubtless there was much — in what 
we have termed the Socratic conferences, to suggest to 
a mind like that of Plato, or of Euclid, who was after- 
wards a leader of one of the Socratic schools, a science 
of the soul (psychology), or of ultimate being (ontology), 
the fact is that the old and popular maxim which Socrates 
adopted as the expression of the leading thought of his 
teaching, yvco6c aeavrov, "Know thyself," was given by 
him an application principally practical, or ethical (and 
in a rather narrow sense) : Man should know himself — 
in order to be good and do the good. Though he assumed 
that truth was native to the mind and that human knowl- 
edge is at bottom self-knowledge, he did not make the 
nature of the mind or soul as such a subject of scientific 
investigation, nor did he wholly or in part identify self- 
knowledge with the knowledge of absolute intelligence 
or reality. To judge from the Charmides, one of the 
earliest and doubtless one of the most purely Socratic 
of Plato's dialogues, Socrates was sceptical in regard to 
the possibility of constructing a science of absolute 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 55 

knowledge or being, it being impossible for him to sepa- 
rate in thought the form of knowledge from the content. 
Physical Philosophy of Socrates. — But Socrates did 
not abstain entirely from speculation concerning things 
not human. For though he hesitated on the threshold 
of the science of ultimate intelligence and reality, and 
cast aside as futile and impious the early nature-philoso- 
phy, he was not without a theory of nature. In his 
youth he was, according to a representation in one of the 
dialogues of Plato, 1 always agitating himself with ques- 
tions relating to the mechanical causes and constituents 
of things. Anaxagoras, though not completely satisfac- 
tory to him, had helped him to get beyond mechanical 
to final causes, in which alone he found complete satis- 
faction. Whether Plato's representation be perfectly 
authentic or not, we find, as we turn the pages of 
Xenophon, that a favorite theme with Socrates is the 
beautiful and wise adaptation and order in nature, show- 
ing the care of the gods or providence (for polytheistic 
and monotheistic points of view are blended in the 
accounts) for the human family. The Socratic inter- 
pretation of nature is, however, not a philosophical 
deduction. It does, indeed, subordinate nature to the 
idea of the Good, but the mechanistic conception exists 
side by side with, and practically prevails over, the tele- 
ological and organic: nature, though held to be ani- 
mated by a soul, is conceived as a wise contrivance, for 
man's benefit chiefly, rather than as a living self-realizing 
organism, 2 in which man holds a superior place because 
of his superior power of assimilating and synthetizing 

1 See the Phado, pp. 97, 98, 99. 

2 See especially Memorabilia, Bk. I. ch. 4, and Bk. IV. ch. 3. 



56 GREEK PHILOSOPHY, 

the " elements " of reality. This latter conception of 
nature we shall have occasion to examine when we 
reach Aristotle. The Socratic theory, which is theo- 
logical (in not the largest sense) rather than philosoph- 
ical, is the beginning, historically speaking, of what is 
commonly termed Natural Theology. 

Ethical Philosophy of Socrates. 

Relations between Knowledge and Virtue. — Coming 
now to the doctrines that are most characteristically So- 
cratic, 1 we find the first and most important to be this : 
All virtue is knowledge. Knowledge here means, accord- 
ing to the express testimony of Aristotle, 2 as well as the 
whole tenor of the Socratic discussions everywhere, (not 
mere "prudence" or practical insight, but) science, cor- 
rect definition. The man of virtue is not he who per- 
forms -his duties to self and the state, half-reflectively, 
but he who possesses, and consciously realizes in act, 
the exact conception of each of his relations to self and 
the state. Socrates meant that scientific knowledge is 
not only a condition to virtue, but the sole condition ; 
and, conversely, that vice is simply ignorance: to do 
wrong wittingly is better than to do right ignorantly. 3 
Character and deliberate choice, consequently, were not 
regarded by Socrates as elements of virtue. He did not 
admit that there was any merit or virtue in the over- 
coming of evil inclinations by force of character or will. 
Given knowledge, thought he, and there follows, neces- 
sarily and immediately, virtue. " Now the rest of the 
world are of the opinion that knowledge is a principle 

1 Aristotle's Metaphysics, Bk. I. ch. 6. 

2 See Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. III. ch. 8; Bk. VI. ch. n. 
8 Xenophon's Memorabilia, Bk. III. ch. 9 ; Bk. IV. ch. 6. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 57 

not of strength or of rule, or of command ; their notion 
is that a man may have knowledge, and yet that the 
knowledge which is in him may be mastered by anger, 
or pleasure, or pain, or love, or perhaps favor, — just as 
if knowledge were a slave and might be dragged about 
anyhow. Now, is that your view? Or do you think that 
knowledge is a noble and commanding thing, which can- 
not be overcome, and will not allow a man, if he only 
knows the difference of good and evil, to do anything 
contrary to knowledge, but that wisdom will have 
strength to help him?" 1 

General Consequences of the Unity of Knowledge and 
Virtue. — From the unity of virtue and knowledge it 
follows that the virtues are not many, merely, but one 
also. They are related to each other, not as the "parts 
of the face" but "as the parts of gold," which are like 
one another, and like the whole of which they are parts. 
One implies the rest ; there is a necessary relation be- 
tween them through knowledge. 2 Possessing a common 
essence, they possess a power of giving rise one to 
another : the man who, in one relation is temperate, 
will in another be just, or holy, or courageous, as the . 
case may require. From the unity of virtue and knowl- 
edge, it follows, also, that the virtues can be taught. 
They are not, as the Sophists thought, so many particu- 
lar knacks, or little arts, that can be caught and practised 
by instinct : they are the offspring of conception, scien- 
tific apprehension. Hence the importance, constantly 
emphasized by Socrates, of comprehending in every in- 
stance the exact nature of what is required to be done, 

1 Plato's Protagoras, p. 352 (Jowett's translation). 

2 Protagoras, pp. 349, 360. 



58 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

and of a right training of the mind to the forming of 
conceptions, i.e., scientific education. 

Classification of the Virtues. — But, now, what virtues 
are there ? and of what are they the knowledge ? To 
these questions Socrates gives no scientific answer. 
Virtue is for him the knowledge of the Good, and the 
Good is not the realization of a universal and absolute 
end, but of the true conceptions or ends of individual 
objects or acts. The Good, in other words, is the use- 
ful. Upon being asked by one of his disciples if he 
knew anything good, Socrates replied, "Do you ask, 
Aristippus, if I know anything good for a fever?" 1 The 
Socratic ethics is unscientific, and, in consequence, utili- 
tarian and eudaemonistic. Notwithstanding the abstract 
and radical character of its first principle — All virtue is 
knowledge — it remains, for lack of development of that 
principle, nearly on the level of mere custom and util- 
ity. The principal virtues are assumed to be temperance, 
friendship, courage, right citizenship, (which, in its high- 
est form, is) justice, piety ; the root and sum of them all 
being wisdom. 

Temperance. — Temperance, the fundamental (though 
not the crowning) virtue, is the keeping of the bodily 
impulses in subjection to the desires of the mind. "I 
consider it," says Socrates, "as a mark of perfection 
in the gods that they want nothing ; he, therefore, 
approaches nearest the divine nature who wants the 
fewest things." This must be construed, however, not 
as an argument for asceticism, but for self-control merely. 
" To continue master of himself in the midst of the allure- 
ments of the senses by the unruffled dignity of his own 

1 Memorabilia, Bk. III. ch. 8. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 59 

inner life — that was the aim," says Zeller, " which his 
moderation proposed to itself." Without temperance, 
thought Socrates, men can be nothing in themselves or 
to their fellows ; the good general, the good guardian, 
the good neighbor, the good herdsman, the good slave, 
is temperate. 1 

Friendship. — Of friendship and love, Socrates, as we 
learn from both Xenophon and Plato, made much. 
Although, he said, the majority of mankind are more 
diligent in acquiring houses, lands, slaves, flocks, and 
household goods than in gaining friends, the firm and 
virtuous friend is the most valuable of all possessions. 
But the Socratic theory of friendship is not rose-colored : 
friends are good because they are useful. True friend- 
ship, however, can exist only between the intelligent, 
virtuous, and disinterested. Socrates adopted the com- 
mon Greek notion that the end of conjugal love was the 
begetting of a numerous and healthy progeny. The force 
of the Socratic doctrines of friendship must have been 
enhanced for his associates by his spirit and manner in 
conversation; he would " frequently assume the char- 
acter and language of a lover " 2 for the purpose of win- 
ning the confidence of others and getting them enamored 
of the truth. It is the doctrine of Socrates set forth in 
the light of his spirit that Plato has presented in his 
Symposium, where Socrates is discoursing in an inspired 
manner on spiritual love. In the Socratic conception of 
friendship and love, there was, it seems, an element not 
usually present in the Greek conception, namely, that of 
the duty of love to enemies as well as to friends. 3 

1 Memorabilia, Bk. I. ch. 5. 

2 Ibid., Bk. IV. ch. 1 ; Bk. II. chs. 6, 28. 

3 Plato's Crito, p. 49. 



60 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Right Citizenship and Justice. — Socrates never allowed 
to escape him any opportunity, on the one hand, to en- 
courage those whom he thought competent, to engage 
in the active service of the state, and, on the other, 
to discourage those who were incompetent and over- 
ambitious. Charmides, who was competent, he urged 
to acquaint himself with his own powers and to lose 
no occasion for exerting them in his country's ser- 
vice ; 1 but Euthydemus he checked, in the following 
satiric manner : " I never learned anything, O men of 
Athens," he feigns Euthydemus as saying, "from any 
one. On hearing that certain persons were skilled in 
speaking and in the conduct of practical affairs, I never 
sought to associate myself with them ; nor did I ever 
seek an instructor among those competent to give in- 
struction. On the contrary, I have persistently avoided 
not only seeking instruction but even seeming to do so. 
Nevertheless, I propose to offer such advice as may 
happen to occur to me." 2 Socrates then likens him to 
a man who should complacently announce that he never 
thought of making a study of medicine and had never 
received any instruction in it, and yet should solicit 
others to offer themselves as subjects for him to experi- 
ment upon. Socrates was, doubtless, one of the most 
ardent, one of the wisest, of all the apostles of political 
education and intelligent citizenship the world has ever 
seen. The highest privilege, the most commanding 
duty, the noblest function of the individual man are, 
he declared, those connected with citizenship in an 
intelligent, well-ordered state, — a state in which " not 

1 Memorabilia, Bk. III. ch. 7. 2 Ibid., Bk. IV. ch. 2. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 6l 

the possession of power nor the fortune of the lot, nor 
popular election, but knowledge alone, . . . confers a 
claim to rule." 1 If he did not seek a conspicuous part 
in the affairs of state, 2 that was because he saw the 
imperative need of checking ignorant ambition and 
demagoguism by steadfastly doing what he could to 
make knowledge and virtue prevail. As a subject, 
though he saw fit to criticise existing institutions and 
rulers, and to encourage independence of judgment 
everywhere, he rendered strict obedience ; 3 as one of 
the governors, he was perfect in firmness and fidelity. 
Socrates was, in short, both in theory and practice, one 
of the comparatively few completely sane and whole- 
minded among men, — men who are able to preserve 
the balance between what is and what "ought" to be; 
he was a just man in the larger, Greek sense of the 
term. And, in the Greek view, justice, in which right 
citizenship culminates, is the crowning virtue, the virtue 
that harmonizes individual independence with friendship, 
the relation of the individual to himself with his relation 
to others. 

Piety. — The days of Socrates, if ever those of any man 
were, were "bound each to each " ; if not by a "natural 
piety" in exactly the Wordsworth ian sense, 4 yet by a 
piety as pure, deep, and simple, — as natural, — as that, 
and more distinctively human. Though he discarded 



1 ZelleSs Socrates and the Socratic Schools, ch. 7. 

2 Memorabilia, Bk. IV. ch. I. 

3 Ibid., Bk. IV. ch. 4. 

4 See, for example, Wordsworth's stanza beginning — 

" My heart leaps up when I behold 
A rainbow in the sky." 



62 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

physical speculation as barren and impious, he believed 
that the order of the world was cognizable by the power 
of moral insight. He held that human wisdom, the 
knowledge that conduces most to human welfare, was 
but an image of the divine wisdom that ruled the world. 
He enjoined piety for the double reason that it was due 
to the gods (God) because of their (His) care for men, 
and because of the wisdom apparent in the order of the 
world, and that to the pious alone are communicated 
some of the divine secrets that may not be penetrated 
into by the unaided mind of man. He enjoined the 
customary sacrifices merely as symbols of a pure heart, 
and his prayer was simply that the gods would give him 
those things that were good. In his belief and teaching 
the Supreme Being was invisible, all-wise, all-powerful, 
all-good, exercising dominion over the world as the 
mind does over the body. 1 

Wisdom. — Wisdom, which was sometimes enumerated 
among the particular virtues by Greek teachers of ethics, 
was, as we have seen, regarded by Socrates as the root 
and the substance of all the virtues. " Socrates would 
often say that justice and every other virtue is wisdom." 2 
This is, indeed, just what he meant by the dictum, All 
virtue is knowledge. And by knowledge he undoubtedly 
meant self-knowledge especially, — a clear, correct con- 
ception, on the part of the individual, of his own powers 
and limitations as well as of his divine nature. As we 
have already seen, Socrates constantly strove to cause 
those with whom he conversed to "examine into the 
nature of things and class them properly," i.e. y to form 

1 Memorabilia, Bk. I. chs. 4 and 8. 2 Ibid., Bk. III. ch. 9. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 63 

the habit of framing correct conceptions, and he held it 
to be of the highest moment that they should apply the 
art of framing conceptions to the getting of a knowledge 
of themselves. Wisdom, then, was to Socrates the sci- 
ence of human nature ; and since the end of this science 
is virtue, wisdom is simply ethical or moral science. 
Socrates did not construct such a science, but pointed 
the way to it. Further, Socrates, as we know, held that 
the scientific knowledge of self was sufficient to con- 
stitute virtue : he who knows how he ought to serve the 
gods is pious ; he who knows the laws that men ought 
to observe is just: 1 "justice and every other virtue is 
wisdom " : true conceptions rightly apprehended have an 
inherent and necessary power to make men good. 

Beauty. — To the Socratic doctrine of the Good may 
be appended, as in some sort a corollary, his doctrine of 
Beauty. The term beauty is scarcely more with Socra- 
tes than another name for what is also called goodness. 
Beautiful is whatever is adapted to the purpose for 
which it was intended, i.e., whatever realizes its con- 
ception ; a dung-cart is beautiful if so made that it 
answers its purpose. 2 The work of the true painter or 
sculptor — the artist — is not a medley of individually 
beautiful elements having no connection with each other 
for thought ; it is the embodiment of a conception. 3 

General Result. — The general character of the So- 
cratic philosophizing may be stated as follows: Socra- 
tes was by natural temperament, by deliberate choice, 
and by circumstances given the task of introducing the 



1 Memorabilia, Bk. IV. ch. 6. 2 7^ B k. III. ch. 8. 

3 Ibid., Bk. III. ch. 10. 



64 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

problem of self-knowledge and of instituting a tendency 
which should result in the substitution for the (to a 
large extent) unscientific and unfruitful speculations of 
the early Greek philosophers about nature, and for the 
superficial subjectivism and humanism of the Sophists, 
scientific — or at least definite — and fruitful concep- 
tions about man, and, later, about universal reason 
and nature. "All beyond him lies in the region of 
unsophisticated use and wont, or prescriptive ethics, 
like that of the Chinese or other Oriental civilizations ; 
on the hither side, the chief interest is the ever-widen- 
ing influence of the individual consciousness of moral 
necessity, the long and gradual discipline of mankind 
into independent responsible wills, endowed with ' rights 
of conscience.' In the ante-Socratic principle the in- 
dividual takes the impulse from without — from auspices 
or auguries — nothing being undertaken without them. 
Individual conscience and personal decision date from 
the epoch of Socrates, and their growth from that time 
is the progress of the world's history." 1 Socrates in- 
stituted the science of man ; he did so by instituting in 
the world's consciousness true manhood. And it is 
very largely as a personal force that he holds his place, 
a very high one, in the history of the world's abstract 
thought. Hence, we may repeat in conclusion, the ne- 
cessity of presenting, in any account of the philosophy 
of Socrates, so much, relatively, that is personal and 
concrete in connection with what, in agreement with 
the nature of the subject, must be impersonal and 
abstract. 

1 " Socrates " (art. by W. T. Harris in Johnson's Cyclopaedia). 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 65 

§9- 

The Followers of Socrates. — It would be too much to 
expect that more than a very few of those who came 
under the influence of Socrates could understand ex- 
perientially his personality or interpret the thought 
that lay underneath it ; and, in fact, the immediate 
disciples and successors of Socrates may be divided 
into three classes : first, those who (like Xenophon) 
reproduced with little or no modification the Socratic 
doctrines but only incompletely the Socratic spirit 
and method ; second, those who, according to their 
several personal temperaments and predilections, at- 
tributed special importance to some one feature of 
Socrates's teaching or personality ; and third, those, or, 
rather, that one who, combining the principles and 
doctrines of Socrates with principles and doctrines of 
other thinkers, and interpreting freely the personality 
of Socrates, was the first to give to philosophy, on a 
Socratic basis, something like completeness of content 
and form — namely Plato. Of the second class were 
the so-called Lesser Socratics, whom we have next to 
consider. 

§ 10. 

The Lesser Socratics} — Of the Lesser Socratics there 
were three schools, representing three very distinct 
tendencies in the Socratic philosophizing : the Mega- 
rians or Megarics, the Cynics, and the Cyrenaics. 

1 The following account is in matters of detail based largely upon Zel- 
ler's account in the Socrates and the Socratic Schools. Assistance has been 
derived from Hegel's interpretation (which is the best) in his Geschichte 
der Philosophic, Vol. II. 



66 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

The Megarians, or Megarics. — The Megarians took 
their name from the place Megara (not very far from 
Athens), in which the school flourished. These thinkers 
— children of the intellectual subtlety of Socrates (see 
p. 46) — occupied themselves with dialectics and con- 
ceived reality, which they termed the Good, not as 
ethical Being but as a purely abstract ontological entity, 
Being in the Eleatic sense. The Good, they declared, 
and only the Good is. Their method was similar to 
that of Zeno, and so tenaciously did Euclid, the founder 
of the school, cling, theoretically at least, to the prin- 
ciple of identity, the logical counterpart of pure Being, 
that he rejected the Socratic reasoning by analogy, af- 
firming that to explain things by means of others unlike 
them is impossible and to explain them by means of 
things like them is superfluous. The principal Mega- 
rians besides Euclid were Eubulides, Diodorus, and, 
unless he belongs rather with the Cynics, Stilpo, said 
to have been the most brilliant of them all. The method 
of the Megarics, it appears, degenerated into logical 
hair-splitting and fell into disrepute under the name 
" eristic." From one point of view, indeed, it seems 
idle to affirm, as did Stilpo, that only " identical prop- 
positions " (e.g. A man is a man) are valid ; but Stilpo 
was consistent : simple, abstract identity is, as we shall 
find Plato demonstrating, no principle of synthesis. 
This, however, was not the most disagreeable phase of 
the "eristic"; it became, to use words 1 applied by 
Plato to the corrupt Sophist in general, "disputatious, 
controversial, pugnacious, combative," and if it served 

1 Sophist, p. 226. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 6? 

any good purpose whatever, served only to stimulate 
minds more profound than the Megarian to a discovery 
of a serious, straightforward, logical method : the Me- 
garians, bad as well as good, must share the credit of 
having incited both Plato and Aristotle to logical and 
metaphysical investigation deeper than their predeces- 
sors had undertaken. One of the most celebrated 
pieces of dialectic employed by the Megarians is that 
of Diodorus on possibility and actuality, which " is still 
admired after centuries as a masterpiece of subtle 
criticism" : — "From anything possible nothing impos- 
sible can result. But it is impossible that the past can 
be different from what it is ; for had it been possible at 
a past moment, something impossible would have resulted 
from something possible. It was therefore never pos- 
sible, and generally speaking it is impossible that any- 
thing should happen differently from what has hap- 
pened." 1 

The Cynics. — Nearest in method and spirit to the 
Megarians were the Cynics, who also declared that 
only "identical propositions" are valid, and who con- 
ceived the Good, if not as the abstract, universal, sole 
metaphysical entity, the One, yet as the equally abstract 
particular, individual One. The Cynics took their name 
either from a place near Athens, — a gymnasium called 
the Cynosarges, — where Antisthenes (born 444 B.C.), their 
leader, taught, or else from their unsociableness, chur- 
lish {doggish = kvvlk6s = cynical) manners and mode of 
life. Antisthenes — a pupil of Gorgias — was an intimate 
associate of Socrates and considered himself the genuine 

1 Zeller's Socrates and the Socratic Schools, p. 232. 



68 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Socratic. Superficially speaking, such he was. He 
affected a preference to ethics over logic and physics 
(philosophy of nature), holding logic to be entirely 
subsidiary to ethics, and physics to be valueless ; and 
adopted the narrowest view of ethics, the view, namely, 
that treats the individual as merely such, as merely a 
particular, isolated, empty self. He inverted, or techni- 
cally speaking, converted, Socrates' s dictum, All virtue 
is knowledge (making it All knowledge is virtue) and 
then took as the ideal of virtue a strained conception 
of the Socratic self-control and superiority to appetite. 
The Cynic doctrine of virtue is practically, therefore, in 
a word this : The Good is the realization, to the fullest 
possible extent, of the conception of the abstract indi- 
vidual self. In conduct, — for the Cynics were consci- 
entious and attempted to live up to their ideal, — this 
doctrine had for its result shabbiness of dress, indecency 
of manner and life, mendicancy, vagrant " citizenship 
of the world," almost complete abandonment of all 
concrete relation to family, state, and religion. This, 
obviously, was pure asceticism, unlovely, unhuman ; but 
it was the asceticism not of " supernaturalism " but of 
naked " naturalism," abstract "positivism." Antisthe- 
nes was himself a true exemplar of the Cynic virtue : 
"He wore no garment except a cloak ; allowed his 
beard to grow ; carried a wallet and staff ; renounced 
all diet but the simplest ; . . . [was] stern, reproachful, 
and bitter in his language ; careless and indecent in his 
gestures." 1 The most cynical and famous of the Cyn- 



1 Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy, p. 178; also Diogenes 
Laertius, Life of Antisthenes. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 69 

ics, however, was Diogenes of Sinope, who was con- 
ceited, scurrilous, witty, more than half wise, a carica- 
ture of Socrates, — sleeping in porticos, coarsely and 
scantily clad, living on the rudest fare, drinking water 
from the palm of his hand, violating all rules of decency, 
railing at whatever and whomever he whimsically con- 
ceived a dislike to, an admired, privileged "Dog" in- 
deed ! x At their best, however, the Cynics undertook 
to be moral benefactors : to teach and enforce by moral 
suasion the doctrines of simplicity in living, sincerity 
and candor in speech, the paramount value of the inner 
life. But they were extremists, and their doctrines 
passed into and gave rise to those diametrically opposed 
to them. 

The Cyrenaics. — From particular, individual will it is 
but a step to particular, individual pleasure, and the next 
form to be considered of that peculiar mode of abstrac- 
tion which characterizes the Lesser Socratics is found 
in the Cyrenaic doctrine of the good as happiness, or 
pleasure. The founder of the Cyrenaic school was Aris- 
tippus of Cyrene (born 435 B.C.), who, notwithstanding 
his appetite for luxury in living, and the abundance of 
his means for gratifying it (for he was wealthy), was 
strongly attracted by Socrates and his teachings, and 
became an enthusiastic disciple of his. The point of 
greatest attractiveness to Aristippus was, doubtless, 
Socrates's practice and theory of self-control, not in the 
form of self-denial but of easy mastership of self in the 
midst of free indulgence. The doctrine of the Cyrenaics 
appears to have been in its origin and development sub- 
stantially as follows : happiness and virtue, or the good, 

1 Dioor Lrxert. 



JO GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

coincide. Whatever does not conduce to that, the sole 
end of human existence, is worthless (logic and physics 
are completely subsidiary to ethics). The only objects 
of knowledge are feelings, which are the sole end of action. 
Each individual knows only his own feelings, which, 
therefore, constitute the sole end of his actions. The 
only feelings of absolute worth are pleasurable feelings. 
Hence virtue, the good, is the pleasure, — and primarily 
the bodily pleasure, — of the, individual. This view 
underwent a development which is substantially as fol- 
lows : — The discovery was made that there is a difference 
among pleasures in degree and kind, and that the idea 
of pleasure as suck is untenable. Pleasures must some- 
times be purchased by pain, and a balancing of pleasures 
with pains is necessary to a determination of the value 
of pleasures. Again, it was discovered that pleasures, 
to be most fully desirable, must at least be accompanied 
by thought or wisdom, and hence that mere bodily 
pleasures are inferior in kind. The Cyrenaics thus 
arrived at a theory of happiness which, as we shall see, 
differed from those of Plato and Aristotle, which had 
from the beginning a thought-basis, only as regards basis, 
and consequently as regards value for a life that is radi- 
cally determined by thought. There is here the same 
weakness that appears in the theories of the other Lesser 
Socratics, and in the philosophizing even of Socrates 
himself : namely, the want of a thought-basis, and hence 
of essential synthesis and wholeness. The lives of the 
Cyrenaics, it appears, conformed fairly well with their 
doctrines. Aristippus was a brilliant pleasure-seeker, 
but he was more than that ; he understood something 
of true nobility of mind — tJiat he had felt in Socrates, 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. J\ 

and he appears to have possessed it so far as to know 
" how to preserve calmness and composure in the midst 
of the perpetual change of human affairs, how to govern 
his passions and inclinations, and how to make the best 
of all the events of life." 1 Nearly a century later the 
Cyrenaic doctrine underwent still further development. 
This began with Theodorus (near the close of the fourth 
century B.C.), who affirmed the self-sufficiency of private 
intellectual satisfaction, for the attainment of which he 
renounced, theoretically at least, family, country, the 
popular religion, and all else. Hegesias, advancing a 
step, affirmed happiness to consist in resignation, a strug- 
gle to avoid or endure pain rather than an effort to find 
positive pleasure, which he regarded as beyond human 
attainment. According to him, indifference, not posi- 
tive desire, was the philosophic attitude of mind. He 
is said to have committed suicide. Anniceris, finally, re- 
treated towards the earlier Cyrenaic doctrine, advocating 
the active pursuit of pleasure and a due attention to all 
possible sources of enjoyment. He even recognized 
self-sacrifice as a means to true happiness. To intelli- 
gence or mental culture he seems to have assigned only 
a secondary position in the scale of desirable things. 

Result. — The general character of the doctrines of 
the Lesser Socratics need not be dwelt upon here. It 
has already been pretty fully indicated, and will receive 
further elucidation in the accounts that are to follow of 
the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, and the post-Aristote- 
lian schools of philosophy, with which last they will 
be seen to have very close connection. We there- 

1 See above, p. 58, for a similar statement concerning Socrates. 



72 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

fore pass at once to Plato, who was the truest continu- 
ator of the philosophy of Socrates. 



§ ii. 

Life of Plato. — Plato was born either at Athens, or 
at ^Egina, on the island of the same name, probably in 
the year 427 B.C. He was of a wealthy and aristocratic 
family, and doubtless received the highest educational 
advantages the brilliant age in which he lived afforded. 
He assimilated the best parts and elements of the good 
poets, himself possessed unquestionable poetical talent, 
having written some dithyrambics, lyrics, and tragedies, 
and had a clear eye for universal truth ; he was, in short, 
one of those youths of fine gifts, spirit, and education 
who were the delight of the great teachers in Greece. 
" By Heracles ! " exclaims Socrates, speaking of the 
beautiful youth Charmides, in Plato's dialogue of that 
name, " there never was such a paragon, if only he has 
one other slight addition." " What is that ? " asks 
Critias. " If he has a noble soul," says Socrates. From 
all accounts, one of which represents him as a son of 
Apollo, it would appear that Plato was, in the eyes of 
his master, Socrates, just such a paragon. Before he came 
under the influence of Socrates he may have been pos- 
sessed by the then ordinary ambition of Athenian youths, 
to shine among politicians. It is difficult to conceive, 
however, that a youth of poetical and meditative tem- 
perament, and of very decidedly aristocratic predilections, 
could find anything congenial in the corrupt politics of 
a degenerated and degenerating democracy such as ruled 
Athens in Plato's early manhood. At all events, his 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 73 

mind was, by his intercourse with Socrates, permanently 
fixed upon philosophy — he had already studied Hera- 
clitus, if not others of the earlier philosophers — and he 
chose for himself a life of comparative seclusion and 
contemplation rather than one of active intercourse with 
the world at large. Coming to Socrates at the age of 
nineteen or twenty, he remained a modest and devoted 
disciple until the death of the master, a period of eight 
or nine years. His intercourse with Socrates must have 
had as consequences an intensification of already exist- 
ing intellectual appetites, and awakening of new ones, 
and the implanting of an ideal of manhood — in brief, a 
drawing out and strengthening of all his faculties. After 
the death of Socrates, Plato, to escape the hostility of 
the persecutors of Socrates, went to Megara, and there 
became a pupil, or at least a companion, of Euclid. 
How long he remained there is not known. It is certain 
that before many years he travelled to Cyrene, in Africa, 
to Italy, and to Sicily. Probably he visited Egypt also. 
At Syracuse, Sicily, the tyrant Dionysius, who thought 
his doctrines impracticable, "senile," and was anxious 
to get rid of him, treated him as a prisoner of war, and 
delivered him to a Spartan ambassador, " who exposed 
him for sale in the slave market of yEgina. Ransomed 
by Anniceris, a Cyrenian, he thence returned to his na- 
tive city." Through his travels his views of life and 
society were expanded, and he acquired a fuller knowl- 
edge of mathematics and of the Pythagorean philosophy 
and ethical regime — facts that must be taken into 
account in any view of the development of his philo- 
sophical theories. By the year 387 or 384 B.C., if not 
earlier, he was teaching and writing at Athens, where 



74 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

he had founded a school in a gymnasium called the 
Academy. His devotion to his school — avowedly a 
place of scientific, in contradiction to sophistic, instruc- 
tion and culture — seems to have been complete. The 
instruction given, which was free, was mostly oral in 
form, because of his fear that written discourse would 
be misinterpreted, and of the value he set upon personal 
contact and the living word. In his preference for this 
method he was a true Socratic; he was also not un- 
Socratic in combining with instruction, social intercourse 
and the enjoyment with his pupils of an occasional feast. 
But the purely scholastic life did not afford him the op- 
portunity he desired for the practical application of his 
theories, and about the year 367 B.C. we find him in 
Syracuse, Sicily, instructing the younger Dionysius, 
who, by the death of his father, had become ruler of 
that city, in ethical and political philosophy. But what- 
ever hopes Plato may have had in common with other 
ancient philosophers of seeing philosophy successfully 
applied to government, failed. Even had the Platonic 
theories been truly " practicable," Dionysius, it seems, 
was far from being the man to appreciate and apply 
them. Plato returned to Athens, and, with the exception 
of an interval (about 361 B.C.) during which he went on 
a third journey to Sicily to reconcile Dionysius with his 
brother-in-law, Dion, an earnest disciple of Plato, devoted 
the remainder of his life exclusively to teaching philoso- 
phy in the Academy. He died in 347 b.c at the age of 
eighty, with powers undiminished, and reverenced both 
by fellow-countrymen and by foreigners for the exceed- 
ing brilliancy of his intellect and the loftiness and beauty 
of his character. No philosopher, either of ancient or 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 75 

of modern times, save, perhaps, his master Socrates, and 
his pupil Aristotle, has so won and retained the esteem 
of thoughtful men. " Plato," says Hegel, "is one of the 
world-historical individuals ; his philosophy is one of the 
world-historical facts which, from their beginning to all 
subsequent times, have exercised the most important 
influence upon the formation and development of mind." 1 
Plato s Works. — Regarding the Platonic writings — 
their authenticity, the order (or approximate order) of 
their production, the growth of ideas and theories in 
them, and their style — there are a few points which it 
seems indispensable that even the general student of the 
history of Greek philosophy should be aware of. For a 
full account of these, however, the reader must, of 
course, be referred to the accessible learned authorities, 
particularly Zeller, Ueberweg, and Grote. As to the 
authenticity of the Platonic dialogues the student has 
simply to accept, as Plato's own, all (or nearly all, the 
exceptions being unimportant) the dialogues that appear 
in the collection known as Professor Jowett's translation. 
The doubts of Ueberweg and certain others as to the 
authenticity of the important dialogues Meno, Parmeiii- 
des, Statesman, and Sophist are not concurred in by 
authorities generally. 2 As to the order of the writings 
and the growth of Plato's ideas and theories there are 
two (three) leading hypotheses ; one (Schleiermacher's) 
is, that the dialogues were produced according to a more 
or less fully preconceived philosophical scheme ; the 
other (Hermann's) is that they appeared in a succession 

1 " Geschichte der Philosophic," Bd. II. p. 147. 

2 See Zeller 's Plato and the Older Academy (a translation from Zeller's 
Geschichte der Philosophic der Griechen), p. 82. 



j6 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

determined by the "natural growth of Plato's mind." 
The most recent authorities see fit to adopt a mean 
between these two hypotheses, inclining, it would seem, 
rather toward the latter. According to the theory of Her- 
mann, the dialogues may be divided into three classes. 
Those of one class are " Socratic, or elementary, of 
another dialectic or mediatizing, of the third, expository 
or constructive." The first, " written, in part, before 
the death of Socrates, in part, immediately after, have a 
fragmentary, more exclusively elenchtic and protreptic 
character, confine themselves almost entirely to the 
Socratic manner, and as yet go no deeper into the fun- 
damental questions of philosophy. The second class is 
distinguished by greater dryness, less liveliness, less 
cheerfulness of form, and by that searching criticism 
(sometimes approving, sometimes polemical) of the Meg- 
aro-Eleatic philosophy which occupied the time of Plato's 
sojourn in Megara. In the third period, there is, on the 
one hand, as to style, a return to the freshness and ful- 
ness of the first ; while on the other, Plato's horizon has 
been enlarged by the inquiries of the Megarian period, 
by residence in foreign countries, and especially by the 
knowledge he acquired of the Pythagorean philosophy, 
and from the fusion of all the elements we get the most 
perfect exposition of his system, in which the Socratic 
form receives the deepest content and thus attains its 
highest ideal." 1 Combining the two theories with cer- 
tain minor considerations and certain indications noted in 

1 Plato and the Older Academy, pp. 103, 104 ; also pp. 1 17-1 19. Schweg- 
ler agrees with Hermann; see his Handbook of the History of Philosophy, 
pp. 62-67 (Stirling's translation). Practically the difference between 
Zeller and Schwegler here is of little consequence to any but the specialist. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. JJ 

the study of the dialogues themselves, Zeller arrives at 
substantially the following groups : I . Lesser Hippias, 
Lysis, Charmides, Laches, Protagoras, Eutkyphro, Apol- 
ogy, Crito; 2. Phcedrus, Gorgias, Meno, Thecetetus, Sophist, 
Statesman, Parmenides, Symposium, PJicedo, Philebus 
(transitional) ; 3. Republic, Timceus, Critias, Laws. The 
places- of Euthy dermis and Cratylns are uncertain. First 
Alcibiades, Mencxenus are by Zeller considered spurious. 1 
In the first group, then, — to expand a little what is 
contained in the foregoing, — we must look for the 
purely Socratic doctrines wrought out in the Socratic 
manner, and for the historical Socrates, the substance 
of these dialogues being ethical ; in the second group is 
to be found principally the Platonic theory of Ideas, — of 
conceptions and the corresponding archetypal entities ; 
in the third group are contained, besides the theory of 
a dialectic as a science, the theories of virtue, of the 
state and of nature. The general student will find all 
that he requires in the Apology (for a picture of Socrates), 
Protagoras (for Socratic dialectic applied to ethics), 
Theatetus (for the theory of knowledge), Phcedrus and 
Phcedo (for the theory of the soul and of Ideas), Republic 
(for the theory of Ideas, of virtue, and of the state), Phi- 
lebus (for the theory of the finite and infinite, of Ideas 
and the good), Timceus (for the theory of nature and the 
soul). The student will be disappointed if he expect to 



1 It should be noted that certain English authorities at the present mo- 
ment, chief among them Henry Jackson and R. D. Archer-Hind, regard 
the Parmenides and the Philebus as among the very latest of Plato's works 
and as containing, therefore, the latest form of Plato's leading thought, the 
Theory of Ideas. See below, p. 112. (See Journal of Philology, Cam- 
bridge, 1882.) 



y8 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

find dogmatic conclusions at every step in Plato. Plato 
believed thoroughly in keeping the mind open and trying 
questions in every possible way. One may read several 
dialogues — go through, so to say, several movements of 
the Platonic symphony — without finding a real pause. 
As to the external style of the dialogues, the wise reader 
will guard against treating the myths and metaphors in 
which the dialogues abound in a temper too prosaic. 
Plato's philosophy is, in many places, steeped in poetry, 
but, if rightly read, is not ^philosophical on account of 
that. The force of these remarks will receive pointed 
illustration when we reach Aristotle and his criticisms 
upon Plato. 

Plato s General Conception of Philosophy. — Philoso- 
phy, says Plato, speaking half-allegorically, springs from 
a certain "divine madness" caused by the recollection, 
at the sight of the "beauty of earth," of that "true 
beauty " of which the soul had a vision in a pre-existent 
state. 1 And this " madness " is no superficial thing : 
it springs from the very essence of the soul as an im- 
mortal being : it is a prophecy of the soul's return to 
the knowledge and enjoyment of eternal reality. This 
return is brought about by philosophy. By philosophy 
alone can the Idea of the Good be represented among 
men and they become like God, "in whom is no un- 
righteousness at all." 2 Not, indeed, that any philoso- 
pher has perfect wisdom, for God alone is wise, and the 
Idea of the Good is with difficulty discerned. 3 Men 
are, as it were, confined in a dark den, where they can 
scarcely tell shadows from realities. The ascent to the 

1 Phcedrus, p. 249. 2 Theatetus, p. 176; Phccdo, p. 82. s Phcedrus, p. 278. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 79 

/ 

upper world is slow and difficult, and the Idea of the 
Good is seen last. In this ascent there are four stages, 
in the last of which, only, is the real truth apprehended. 1 
The first is mere opinion ; the second, right opinion, or 
true belief, which, however, is " without reason," i.e., 
is unscientific ; the third is understanding, or what is 
commonly termed science, though it is in reality only 
^z/tf.rz-scientific, because it rests on certain unproved 
presuppositions ; the fourth is science, or completely 
reasoned knowledge, knowledge in which there are no 
unexamined or unfounded presuppositions or hypoth- 
eses. 2 Now the last stage is reached only through a 
course of discipline which may be described as follows. 
The " divine madness " being presupposed to exist, in 
germ, at least, in all minds, but especially in certain 
ones who are, therefore, embryo philosophers, there 
must, in the first place, be " right opinion " " engrafted " 
on it. This must be done by training in gymnastics 
and music, — gymnastics for the body and music for the 
soul. (Music is to be understood here as including 
poetry.) " He who has received this true education of 
the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions 
or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while 
he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul 
the good, becomes noble and good, he will justly blame 
and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth even 
before he is able to know the reason of the thing : when 
reason comes, he will recognize and salute her as a 
friend with whom his education has made him long 
familiar." The gymnastic education 3 supplements the 

1 Republic, p. 517. 2 Ibid., pp. 511 and 533. 3 Ibid., p. 402. 



80 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

musical with strength and firmness, courage and spirit, 
both animal and mental. But, in the second place, 
there must be mathematical training to enable the soul 
to " rise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true 
being." Such training gives measure, harmony, unity 
to thought, and tends in its results towards the " vision 
of the Idea of the Good " ; it furnishes the mind with 
a method and enables it to give something like scientific 
form and validity to its "right opinion." Such training, 
however, is but the "prelude" to the "actual strain of 
philosophy." 1 Philosophically speaking, the defect of 
mathematics (i.e., arithmetic and geometry) is that it is 
but a half step from sense. It reasons correctly, but it 
reasons about that which is, as compared with being, 
semi-sensuous, and its first principles are mere hypoth- 
eses : "as to the mathematical arts, which, as we 
were saying, have some apprehension of true being — 
geometry and the like — they only dream about being, 
but never can they behold the waking reality so long 
as they leave the hypotheses which they use, undis- 
turbed, and are unable to give any account of them." 2 
It is "dialectic and dialectic alone which does away 
with hypotheses in order to establish them ; the eye of 
the soul, which is literally buried in some outlandish 
slough, is by her taught to look upward ; and she uses 
as hand-maids in the work of conversion the sciences we 
have been discussing. Custom terms them sciences, 
but they ought to have some other name, implying 
greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than 
science ; and this in our previous sketch was called 

1 Republic, p. 525. 2 Ibid., p. 533. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 8 I 

understanding." 1 Dialectic, then, is the highest science, 
the "coping-stone" of the sciences. The preparation 
required for it is of the severest kind, and demands the 
strongest and steadiest minds. Only the " unwearied, 
solid man," who loves labor, has a good memory, is 
morally whole and sound, should undertake it ; dialectic, 
in fact, cannot be undertaken without risk of intellectual 
and moral disintegration (such as the Sophistic culture 
fosters) until the age of thirty, and even then only by 
the best minds in the best bodies. Five years must be 
given to the theoretical mastery of it before any attempt 
to make practical application of it to the affairs of 
state (for the state is to be ruled by philosophy) ; the 
remaining years of a man's life after fifty are to be 
given to the pursuit of it. 1 Such is Plato's general 
notion of philosophy. 

The Divisions of Philosophy and their General Rela- 
tions. — Plato nowhere formally makes a division of 
philosophy into distinct parts. Circumstances had 
made his task one of synthesis rather than of analysis. 
He had gathered together what he saw to be the strands 
of philosophy which earlier thinkers had held in separa- 
tion, and in his hands philosophy became for the first 
time something like a complete whole. But such a 
division or analysis was virtually contained in his syn- 
thesis, and was made actual by a pupil of his, Xenocrates. 
The parts recognizable in Plato's philosophy, are, then, 
Dialectic, the theory of thought and being, as such, 
Physics, the theory of nature, and Ethics, the theory of 
the Good. Now of these parts dialectic is highest, the 

1 Republic, p. 533. 2 md^ pp. 535-540. 



82 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

" coping-stone " ; as regards both method and con- 
tent it furnishes to the other parts the ideal of truth. 
In its purest form it is the science of absolute knowl- 
edge and being, whereas all other sciences are sciences 
of being that is derivative and has cognoscibility and 
reality only in so far as it "participates" in that true 
supreme being. 

Dialectic as a Twofold Science. — The dialectic of 
Plato may be described as the natural result of the 
Socratic conception developed under the influence, in 
Plato's mind, of the negative, or repelling, force of the 
Heraclitic doctrine of the eternal flux of things of sense, 
and the positive, or attracting, force of the Eleatic doc- 
trine of being as one and unchangeable. Plato, in other 
words, held with Socrates that knowledge exists only 
in the form of the conception, a definite, unchanging 
notion, and, with the Eleatics, that that of which there 
is knowledge is not the world of sense as Heraclitus had 
characterized it, but being, one and universal. Knowl- 
edge and being are thus correlative, and dialectic is 
hence a twofold science, the science of knowledge and 
of being. It is also the application of the science of 
knowledge in the getting of knowledge, and hence is a 
method ; and, we may say also, of the science of being 
in action, though Plato does not use the term frequently, 
if at all, in this sense. 

Dialectic as a Theory of Knowledge and as Method. — 
As a science of knowledge it is a true account of the 
way in which true conceptions are formed and of con- 
ceptions in their relations. But this way is dialectic as 
method. In its lowest form dialectic is simply the art 
of speech, the art of developing and expressing clearly 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 83 

and effectively our ideas concerning the " essence of 
each thing." x This, it will be seen, is but a description 
of the Socratic practice in its outward aspect, which 
Plato seems always to have regarded as of vital impor- 
tance. To him philosophy was an energizing of the 
whole soul, a matter of life as well as of thought, pre- 
eminently a personal thing. Hence that preference of 
his, already mentioned, for the spoken over the written 
word. Inwardly the dialectic method was with Plato 
the Socratic induction supplemented by division and 
classification and the comparing of the consequences of 
opposite hypotheses. 2 This is the method of thought 
(not of sense) and is based on the hypothesis that real 
knowledge is contained in conceptions, not in sensations. 
The sensational theory of knowledge, the theory first 
propounded by Protagoras, Plato condemned with argu- 
ments among the principal of which are the following. 
If the sensational theory be true, " I wonder that he 
[Protagoras] did not begin his great work on Truth with 
the declaration that a pig or a baboon or some other 
stranger monster which has sensation is the measure of 
all things ; " again, that theory fails to account for the 
permanent character of knowledge, since on the suppo- 
sition that both "object" and "percipient" are in con- 
stant flux there can be no permanence anywhere ; and, 
finally, the theory is self-contradictory, since by its own 
terms it may be just as well false as true. No, the 

1 Republic, p. 534 ; Phcedrus, pp. 277, 278. 

2 P/icedrus, pp. 265, 266; Parmenides, pp. 128 and 136; Republic, 
pp. 427, 428. In the passage last mentioned, Plato refers to, by name, 
the method termed by Mill the " Method of Residues." " Modern Induc- 
tive Philosophy " was largely " anticipated " by Plato and Aristotle. 



84 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

truth is that knowledge is given in conceptions and con- 
ceptions only. The method of knowledge is the method 
of thought ; the seeing of " unity and plurality in na- 
ture." " If I find any man " who can do that, " him I 
follow and walk in his footsteps as if he were a God." 
Now induction, the " upward way " of knowledge, is to 
Plato but tentative, suggestive, not final and conclusive ; 
a begetter of insight but not of science ; and must be 
supplemented by division, the "downward way" of 
knowledge. Induction suggests a hypothesis or possi- 
ble definition of some whole ; division verifies or over- 
throws the hypothesis by exhibiting distinctly and in 
their relations the parts of the whole defined. With 
regard to division Plato says, " you should not clip off 
too small a piece . . . the safe way is to cut through the 
middle, and this is the more likely way of finding classes. 
Attention to this principle makes all the difference in 
a process of inquiry." 1 This method of division is 
known as dichotomy. The method of investigation 
which consists in following out opposite hypotheses and 
comparing their consequences is, of course, Eleatic in 
origin. That hypothesis whose consequences are the 
most probable is the truer hypothesis. The dialectic 
method as just described is, as we shall see, the pre- 
cursor of the Aristotelian logic. 

Dialectic as a System. 

Thought and Being. — In the conceptions arrived at 
by the dialectic method, then, we have knowledge, i.e., 
we have the real thought of being, and the only real or 
permanent conviction possible for us. That this is true 
appeared to Plato, not only as a consequence of the 

1 Statesman, 262 ; Sophist, throughout. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 85 

synthesis of the Eleatic and Socratic doctrines of being 
and knowledge but from such considerations as the fol- 
lowing : The " divine madness" that seizes upon "in- 
genuous natures " and impels them to philosophy, can be 
but the working of the soul's innate knowledge of a 
higher state than the present, a state in which thought 
and being are more immediately one. Again, the source 
of knowledge even in the present existence is not the 
organs of sense, but the soul working through them, 
and our cognitions, which must be cognitions of some- 
thing, are cognitions, not of the world of sense as such, 
but of being. Finally, we cannot suppose that there is 
anything absolutely out of relation to us, for in such a 
case, God who, if anything, would be out of relation to us, 
since he is absolute, could not know us and our world : 
we should constitute an absolute being by ourselves, — 
all of which is absurd, "monstrous." 1 But if this be 
true, being is intelligent, since thought as the thought 
of being is (by virtue of the unity of thought and being) 
being so far as it (being) is capable of being thought. 
Being, therefore, thinks or is intelligent. 

The World of Ideas. — To determine, then, the nature 
of being as an object of thought (and it is only as such 
that we can know it) we must determine what are the 
absolute conceptions. These, in number and nature, 
correspond with the types or classes of phenomenal exis- 
tence. Now as thought and being are one, and as the 
absolute conceptions have each a separate character and 
place in thought, it follows that being is not merely one 
in nature but many also. Being as one in many is 

1 Phadrus, p. 245; Thecetetus, pp. 184, 185, 203-209; Phcedo, pp. 74, 
75; Parttienides, 132-135. 



86 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

termed by Plato the Idea or World of Ideas (etBr)). So 
far as we can speak of beings, there are, then, corre- 
sponding to the types or classes of phenomenal exis- 
tences, certain entities, which are noumenal : Ideas. As 
objects of definite knowledge, the Ideas are distinct, 
fixed, independent : 1 in this they are in sharp contrast 
with sense-natures, which as Heraclitus held, are fleet- 
ing and pass into their opposites, " admit generation 
into or out of one another." But the Ideas " partici- 
pate" in, or "commune" with, each other. Not, how- 
ever, promiscuously, but in certain cognizable ways. 
The ideas of rest and motion, for example, do not par- 
ticipate in each other except indirectly, through partici- 
pation in being. 2 The communion of being and not- 
being is explained as follows. Being is all-inclusive, 
embracing even not-being, unless, indeed, being is 
"pure and fixed emptiness." But being is not such: 
we cannot conceive it " to be devoid of life and 
mind, and to remain in awful unmeaningness and fix- 
ture." 3 In speaking, therefore, of not-being, i.e., gene- 
ration, motion, variety, etc., we speak not of something 
opposed to being but different merely. In general, then, 
not-being is the element of otherness or difference in- 
herent in being. 4 The Ideas together constitute an 
organism which is governed by the Idea of the Good 
(the end of all things). The Idea of the Good embraces 



1 Phccdo, pp. 78-103. 

2 The communion of Ideas is treated especially in the dialogues, Soph- 
ist, Parmenides, and Philebtis. 

3 Sophist, pp. 247-250, 257, 259. 

4 Translated into modern phraseology, this means that all motion, all 
change, is but the self-affirmation, the self-identification of the Eternal. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 87 

within itself a "mixture " * of " mind " (which is definite 
and knowable) and "pleasure" (which is relatively in- 
definite and unknowable) together with the cause of the 
" mixture," or soul. The Good is thus not abstract but 
concrete ; and as the only causal principle in the uni- 
verse is soul, the Idea of the Good is a concrete, intelli- 
gent (and intelligible) power. The Good is further 
described by Plato as including measure, beauty, sym- 
metry, as well as "mind," "pleasure," and "causality." 2 
Of the Good as the supreme Idea he says : "Whether I 
am right or not God only knows ; but, whether true or 
false, my opinion is that in all the world of knowledge 
the Idea of the Good appears last of all and is seen only 
with effort, and when seen, is inferred to be the univer- 
sal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of 
light and lord of light in this world, and the source of 
truth and reason in the other : this is the first great 
cause which he who would act rationally either in public 
or in private life must behold." 3 Again, "the Good is 
not only the author of knowledge in all things known 
[as the sun is of "visibility in all things visible"] but of 
their being and essence, yet the Good is not essence 
[mere being ?] but exceeds essence in dignity and 
power." 4 As the supreme Idea is an intelligent and 
intelligible power, those below it must, as partaking in 
it, also be intelligent and intelligible powers. (Being, 
indeed, is simply power. 5 ) The realm of Ideas is, then, 
a spiritual kingdom : an independent, self-existent, eter- 
nal community of intelligent beings. 6 

1 Philebus, p. 27. 2 Ibid., pp. 61, 63, 65, 67. 3 Republic, p. 517. 

4 Republic, pp. 508, 509. See p. 506. 5 Sophist, pp. 247, 248. 

6 There seems to be no real warrant for affirming (as some do) that to 
Plato the Ideas are merely thoughts in the " mind " of God. 



88 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Relation of the Ideal, to the Phenomenal, World. — In 
the foregoing is virtually contained Plato's answer to a 
question that now naturally arises, What is the relation 
of the world of Ideas to the phenomenal world ? to 
knowledge and objects of knowledge in the world given 
to us ? The answer is, in general terms, as follows : 
"That which imparts truth to the object and knowledge 
to the subject is what I would have you term the Idea 
of the Good, and that you will regard as the cause of 
science and truth as known by us." But to speak par- 
ticularly,^^/, of Ideas as related to human knowledge. 
It is by virtue of the presence of the Idea in us that 
we are self -moving, self -identifying, ~and so, capable of 
knowledge, whether it be scientific comprehension or 
common understanding. The idea as the source and 
synthesis of cognition and being, makes possible for us 
by its working in us the true thought of reality. For 
Plato, consequently, knowledge possessed certain ele- 
ments not recognized by earlier philosophers. The 
Eleatics failed to find in our cognition of phenomena 
anything but "opinion"; Plato declaring things them- 
selves, and our cognition of them to be of the Idea, 
posited philosophically (and was the first who did so) 
the knowledge of the real in the phenomenal. Again, 
the Lesser Socratics affirmed that only " identical propo- 
sitions " are valid. Plato discovered a principle of syn- 
thesis, and thus showed the possibility and the necessity 
of real judgments. Thirdly, Socrates did not entirely 
rise above the notion of merely correct conceptions to 
that of ontologically true conceptions, was sceptical as 
to the possibility of absolute science, hence did not 
attain to a pure metaphysics. Plato did this in positing 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 89 

the Idea as the fountain of knowledge and being. In 
so doing, he gave a new content and a new method to 
philosophy. The content of philosophy is not the ab- 
stract entity termed by the Eleatics Being, nor the 
purely phenomenal world, which the Sophists declared 
knowable only in individual sensation, and Socrates only 
in individual conception, but the concretion of these, 
the world of Ideas, in itself and as having effect and 
manifestation in the phenomenal world, and the phe- 
nomenal world as having its source and cognoscibility in 
the Ideal world. Again, from the fact that the Idea is the 
source of knowledge and being, it follows that the true 
method or "way" of knowledge is the "downward way," 
induction being but an eye-opener, merely a condition 
of nascent or incipient insight. Dialectic, then, is in 
the last analysis, not merely the method of our thinking 
and our theory of the Idea, but is also the method of 
the Idea and the Ideal theory of the Idea. And as the 
"downward way," it is not mere division, but, since the 
Idea is universal and not to be absolutely divided — also 
synthesis; it makes place for the "unity of opposites." 
But, secondly, as to the relation of the Ideas to the world 
of objective, sensible phenomena, the Ideas are conceived 
by Plato, not only as causes, 1 but as archetypes of 
things, the eternal patterns to which the artificer of the 
world looks in framing the world. 2 The world of Ideas 
is self-existent and independent ; phenomenal objects 
"participate" in Ideas or are "imitations" of them. 

1 Phcedo, p. 75; Phcedrus, p. 95; Zellers Plato and the Older Academy, 
pp. 262, 268. Schwegler's Handbook of the Hist, of Philos. (Stirling's 
trans.), p. 79. 

2 Parmenides, p. 132 ; Timceus, p. 28. 



90 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

The exact nature of this participation, or imitation, seems 
not to have been explained by Plato quite satisfactorily to 
himself (or to those coming after him). In fact, Plato rec- 
ognized at this point certain unsolved difficulties in his 
theory of Ideas, and was impelled towards a modification 
of the theory. 1 For example, if the Ideas are entirely 
independent of the phenomenal world, how can they be 
the source of existence to other things or of knowledge 
in us ? These difficulties were afterwards pointed out 
and used against the theory by Aristotle. 2 Though 
participating in Ideas, phenomenal objects are but im- 
perfect representations of Ideas. Why this is so, is 
explained in the theory of nature, or of that which, 
instead of being uncreated, fixed, and scientifically cog- 
noscible, is created, changing, and an object of " opinion " 
and "sense." 

Physics, or the Theory of Nature. 

The Method of Physical Speculation. — In the philo- 
sophical study of nature it is necessary, first of all, Plato 
reminds us, to remember that, owing to the contingency 
pertaining to things created and changing, we cannot, in 
speculating upon such things, proceed with dialectic 
exactness and certainty of method, but must '* observe 
the rule of probability." 3 Plato shared, to some extent, 
Socrates's distrust of physical speculation, (as well as 
Heraclitus's view of the mutability of all phenomenal 
things), regarding it, however, as a kind of pardonable 
and perhaps praiseworthy indulgence, though far from 

1 See below, p. 112. 

2 Parmenides, pp. 1 32-135; Aristotle's Metaphysics, Bk. XIII. chs. 4 
and 5. 

3 Timatus, pp. 28, 29, 48. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 91 

possessing the dignity and value of dialectic, or true 
science. "A man may sometimes set aside arguments 
about eternal things, and for recreation turn to consider 
the truths of generation which are only probable ; thus 
he attains pleasure not to be repented of, and makes for 
himself during his life a wise and moderate pastime." x 

The Cosmos. — The created world is as perfect an imi- 
tation and manifestation of the Idea as was practicable : 
it is a living, intelligible being, a "blessed god." God 
formed the world because he is good and " desired that 
all things be as like himself as possible." The world is 
not an absolutely perfect manifestation of the Idea 
because there was, when the world was created, a certain 
element of necessity which reason had to " persuade" or 
"get the better of," though it could not completely over- 
come it. 2 This element of necessity and obstacle to the 
complete manifestation of the Idea is "matter." God 
(Idea as power working towards an end) formed, first, the 
world-soul, by uniting as perfectly as possible, according 
to certain numerical relations, an unchangeable, indivis- 
ible essence (Idea as fixed, intelligent and intelligible 
nature) and a divisible, corporeal, movable nature, thus 
creating an intermediate essence partaking of the nature 
of the " same and other " and possessing the power to 
declare the "sameness and diversity of things." This 
mediating, mathematical intelligence (the world-soul) — 
mathematics, we have seen, is, with Plato, intermediate 
between science and opinion — God diffused throughout, 
and united perfectly with, a perfect body made of the 
four elements, fire, air, water, earth — " in the harmony 

1 Timczus, p. 59. 2 Ibid., pp. 30, 33, 48. 



92 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

of proportions " — and smooth, even, perfectly spherical. 
The soul he formed prior in time and excellence to the 
body to be the "ruler and mistress of it." 2 The world 
is, accordingly, a "blessed god," not eternal, indeed, but 
an image of eternity and a perfect whole, indissoluble 
except by the hand of the Creator. Time and the world, 
created together, are without end. The world is divided 
according to the "sameness and diversity" of "motion" 
into two spheres, that of the fixed stars and that of the 
planets, all these having souls and being gods. The 
latter revolve about the earth (which is fixed and spheri- 
cal and is pierced by the spindle or axis of the universe) 
in spiral courses from west to east. The four elements 
are not eternal but were created out of an eternal inde- 
structible somewhat, the "receptacle and in a manner 
the nurse of all generation," an "invisible, formless being 
which receives all things and attains in an extraordinary 
way a portion of the intelligible, and is most incompre- 
hensible." Plato seems to identify it with space, a 
"third nature" — the indivisible essence and the corpo- 
real, divisible essence being the first and second — which 
is " eternal and perceived without the help of sense and 
by a spurious reason." 2 It is not a corporeal substance 
for it is not that out of which but that in which phenom- 
ena have become, and it is in its very essence negation 
or not-being (passive, however, rather than active), and 
the occasion of the relative not-being, or the mutability, 
of phenomena. It may be likened to a mother, phe- 
nomena to a child, and the source of phenomena to a 
father. 3 It is the mean, or middle term, between phe- 

1 Timcetis, pp. 32, 34, 35, 38. 2 Ibid., pp. 51, 52. 3 Ibid., p. 50. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 93 

nomena and the Idea. 1 It is that element of " necessity " 
— " matter" — which hinders, while it makes possible, 
the manifestation of the Idea. Fire, air, water, and earth 
are, consequently, not corporeal but merely geometrical 
bodies, fire being four-faced, air eight-faced, water 
twenty-faced, earth six-faced (cubical). All this (and 
much more of similar character), it must be remem- 
bered, is, to Plato, only "probable" or conjectural — 
not science. 

Body and Soul. — Thus much for that portion of the 
work of creation which God himself performed. The 
rest was given into the hands of the created gods. 
These, " imitating the power" of God, formed man 
and animals, the latter being but a lower type of the 
former. 2 The "seed" of the immortal part of the 
soul of man was provided by God himself. It is, of 
course, by this part, which is simple, self-identical, self- 
moving, and indestructible, that the soul participates 
in the Idea and is rational. The mortal part has two 
portions, the " spirited " (courage) and the appetitive 
(desire). The former is naturally inclined to obey the 
immortal, or rational, part of the soul, but is too often 
dragged down by the appetitive part, which is animal, 
and even vegetable, in its tendencies. The rational 
part of the soul is located in the head, courage in the 
heart, and desire in the lower portion of the trunk, 
particularly the liver, which is the seat also of inspira- 
tion and prophecy, these being but a very low order of 
knowledge. To Plato the so-called parts of the soul are 
not parts but faculties. Of their inter-connection he 

1 See Jowett's Introduction to the Timceus, section 3. 

2 Plato not an " evolutionist." 



94 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

offers no explanation. Perception is of like by like (as 
with Empedocles). In sight, for example, the fire from 
the eye meets the external fire, and vision is the result 
Sight and hearing are the noblest of the senses. "Thus 
much let us say : that God invented and gave sight to 
this end, — that we might behold the courses of intelli- 
gence which are akin to them, the unperturbed to the 
perturbed ; and that we, learning them and being par- 
takers of the true computations of nature, might imitate 
the absolutely unerring courses of God and regulate our 
own vagaries. The same [mutatis mutandis] may be 
affirmed of speech and hearing." 1 The soul was " im- 
planted in the body by necessity " : entered into it in 
consequence of a fall from a nobler, preexistent state. 
There is not between the two that perfect harmony 
which exists between the world-soul and its body ("the 
perfect animal"). On the contrary, there is a certain 
antagonism 2 between body and soul, the influence of 
the former upon the latter being evil and degrading, the 
cause of ignorance and spiritual disease. The body, 
indeed, is the soul's prison. The relation between the 
two is represented as follows in the well-known allegory 
of the Charioteer and Winged Horses, in which are 
symbolized, on the one hand, reason, on the other, 
"courage," or passion, and appetite. 3 "Now the winged 
horses and the charioteer of the gods are all of them 
noble, and of noble breed, while ours are mixed ; and 

1 Timceus, pp. 45, 47. 

2 There is a certain discrepancy between the accounts of the Phcedrus 
and the Timceus on this point. The Phcedrus has been followed in what 
is now given. 

3 Phcedrus, pp. 246-255. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 95 

we have a charioteer who drives them in a pair ; and 
one of them is noble and of noble origin, and, as might 
be expected, there is a great deal of trouble in managing 
them. . . . Now the chariots of the gods, self-balanced, 
upward glide in obedience to the rein ; but the others 
have a difficulty, for the steed who has evil in him, if 
he has not been properly trained by the charioteer, 
gravitates and inclines and sinks towards the earth, and 
this is the hour of extremest agony and conflict of the 
soul. For the immortal souls, when they are at the 
end of their course, go out and stand upon the back of 
heaven [the sphere of the fixed stars], and the revolu- 
tion of the spheres carries them around and they be- 
hold the world beyond." When, through the unruliness 
of the steeds, the soul becomes unable to rise sufficiently 
high to " behold the vision of truth, and through some 
mishap sinks beneath the double load of forgetfulness 
and vice, her feathers fall from her and she drops to the 
earth, then the law ordains that this soul shall in the 
first generation pass not into that of any other animal 
but only of man, and the soul which has seen the most 
of truth shall come to the birth as a philosopher, or 
artist, or musician, or lover ; that which has seen the 
truth in the second degree shall be a righteous king, or 
warrior, or lord ; the soul, which is of the third class, 
shall be a politician, or economist, or trader ; the fourth 
shall be a lover of gymnastic toils or a physician ; the 
fifth, a prophet or hierophant ; to the sixth, a poet or 
imitator will be appropriate ; to the seventh, the life of 
an artisan or husbandman ; to the eighth, that of a 
sophist or a demagogue ; to the ninth, that of a tyrant : 
all these are states of probation, in which he who lives 



g6 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

righteously improves, and he who lives unrighteously 
deteriorates his lot." The soul's chief inspiration to 
righteousness is the recollection of the eternal beauty 
of which it had heard or caught a glimpse. This 
" wingless probation" continues for the soul of the 
philosopher or the lover who is faithful to his insight, 
three thousand years, the soul then returning to the 
place whence it came. Others are judged "when they 
have completed their first life," and, at the end of the 
first thousand years, they have a new choice of life, the 
good and the bad souls alike taking what they prefer, 
i.e., what their natures prompt them to take. "And 
the soul of the man may pass into the life of a beast, or 
from the beast again to the man ; " but the souls of those 
who have not seen the truth will not pass into human 
forms, but into those of animals. After death souls are 
classified as holy, moderately good, curably wicked, and 
incurably wicked. The last are punished eternally. — From 
the foregoing may be gathered several essential points in 
the Platonic psychology : the mixed nature of the soul, 
its participation in the Idea, and the necessity that the 
Idea be in a* manner realized in it, the preexistent state, 
and the recollection of that state, the immortality of 
the soul, future retribution, and the transmigration of 
souls. The logical connection between these may be 
briefly, though imperfectly, indicated as follows : the 
soul as participating in the Idea must be prior to the 
body ; it must, even though immersed in the slough of 
sense, retain some recollection of that preexistent state, 
for the Idea is and cannot be obliterated by sense ; but 
the Idea as the Good cannot be completely attained to 
in the world of sense ; hence there must be a future 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 97 

state and future retribution ; and finally, the character 
of the retribution must vary with the bodies or immedi- 
ate environment of the souls of men. The doctrines 
of preexistence and of recollection, or reminiscence, 
demand special notice. They seemed to Plato to fol- 
low not only from the theory of the soul as an off- 
shoot of the Idea, but also from the nature of knowl- 
edge as such. A certain boy, Meno, knows noth- 
ing of geometry, and yet Socrates succeeds in getting 
him to understand a geometrical demonstration and in 
drawing from him certain principles of demonstration ; 
which would be impossible, thinks Plato, if the prin- 
ciples of demonstration had not lain already in the boy's 
mind. 1 Again, though we say that pieces of wood or 
stone are equal, we yet perceive that they are not abso- 
lutely equal, and the conclusion must be that the soul 
possesses, by a sort of recollection implying preexis- 
tence, the conception of absolute equality. 2 The argu- 
ment for the immortality of the soul may be summa- 
rized as follows : 3 The soul is " ever in motion " and 
self-moving ; it cannot be destroyed by immorality, the 
only thing that could destroy it, if anything could ; the 
soul is immortal because God is good, and cannot allow 
so beautiful a creation to perish ; the thirst for absolute 
knowledge and for a future life, implies immortality ; 
opposites pass into each other, sleeping into waking, 
death into life, etc. ; preexistence implies immortality ; 
the soul is an invisible essence, and so possesses the 

1 Meno, pp. 81-83. 

2 Phcedo, pp. 74 and fol. 

3 See Ueberweg's History of Philosophy, Vol. I. p. 127; also Ph<zdrus, 
p. 245; Republic, p. 609; Timceus, p. 41; Phcedo, pp. 62-107. 



98 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

imperishable, indestructible character of the Idea ; the 
soul is not a "harmony" of bodily activities, but is 
itself, the rather a principle of harmony ; it participates 
in the Idea of life, is immortal by virtue of the fact that 
it lives. In the Phcedo (p. 79) Plato conceives immor- 
tality as synonymous in essence, not with everlasting- 
ness, but with wisdom, i.e., perfect self-knowledge and 
self-determination. 

Plato s Ethics. 

General Basis. — The conception of the soul as par- 
ticipating in the Idea and as immortal, is the basis of 
Plato's ethical doctrines. The life of the soul is one 
life ; it is, by reason of the very nature of the soul as an 
original indissoluble harmony and principle of harmony, 
the union of the individual with himself and others, not 
only in the present existence, but in a future state also ; 
it is the life of justice with its necessary concomitant 
happiness. The state, therefore, in which alone the indi- 
vidual soul is furnished with the conditions necessary 
for the realization by the soul of harmony in itself and 
with others in this present existence, is but an instru- 
ment of the Ideal, eternal life, the life of the Idea of 
the Good. 1 

The Method of Ethics. — From the immediately pre- 
ceding statements it appears that Ethics and Politics, 
the sciences of individual and of statal good and virtue, 
are to Plato one. And it is an essential characteristic 
of the method of Plato in the Republic that he begins 
with a consideration of the state as being the " individ- 
ual written larger and on a larger scale," 2 and having 
given a merely tentative theory of that, passes to the 

1 Republic, pp. 611, 612. 2 Ibid., p. 368. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 99 

individual, then back to the state, and so on. This 
characteristic as well as the content of his theory has 
its source in Plato's ever-present anxiety about the true 
ideal totality of things, his never-ceasing quest after a 
true and comprehensive principle of synthesis among 
things. By the use of this method he diminishes, if he 
does not obviate altogether, the appearance of arbitrarily 
applying to one sphere principles discovered in another. 
To him there is no abstract individual : the individual 
is the state in miniature. 

Nature and End of the State. — Historically consid- 
ered, the state, Plato agrees with the Sophists in hold- 
ing, arises out of natural, human necessity : physical 
need, self-interest, lead to division of labor and to asso- 
ciation for common and mutual benefit. But the state 
is not merely an association for the better supplying of 
natural or animal wants, the realization of the nature 
of the individual as such ; government is not merely a 
police force having its only use in the prevention of the 
clashing of individual wills and interests. The state is 
an organism, a vital totality, whose essence lies in its 
being an instrument and manifestation of the Idea ; the 
individuals constituting it consciously cooperate in the 
realization of the absolute conception of the whole. 
The state exists for the special benefit of no particular 
individual or class of individuals. 

The "Parts" of the State and the Virtue pertaining 
to Each. — The members of the state are divided into 
three classes : the husbandmen, who supply the natural 
needs of the state ; the fighters or military class, who 
defend the state against encroachment from without, or 
make conquests for the enlargement of the territory of 



IOO GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the state ; and the rulers, or counsellors, who determine 
the plans by which the state subsists as an instrument 
of the Idea, the embodiment of the conception of jus- 
tice. The two last-named classes Plato designates as 
the guardians of the state. Each of these classes has 
its peculiar virtue : the virtue of the husbandmen being 
temperance, that of the fighters courage, that of the 
rulers wisdom. A careful and long-continued training 
is necessary to the making of the guardians: they are 
to be tried " more thoroughly than gold is tried in the 
fire." They are not only to be given that education in 
music, gymnastics, and the sciences which is requisite 
as a preparation for the study of philosophy, but they 
are to be tried with tests of memory, with " toils and 
pains and conflicts," and " with enchantments and ter- 
rors." If they retain under all circumstances, "a rhyth- 
mical, harmonious nature, such as will be most service- 
able to the man himself and to the state," they are 
worthy to become guardians of the state. 1 They are 
to have no property beyond what is absolutely neces- 
sary, to have no private houses, to be allowed only a 
" living " salary, to have common meals, and to reside 
together. — But what are the virtues in themselves, and 
where is justice ? To answer this latter question, we 
must, says Plato, by the " method of residues" care- 
fully eliminate the known virtues, one after another, 
until we arrive at justice. First, then, is wisdom, the 
virtue of the counsellors, which is knowledge that ad- 
vises "not about any particular thing in the state [e.g., 
carpentering, brazen implements, agriculture] but about 
the whole state, and considers what may be regarded 

i Republic, Bks. II. and III. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. IOI 

as the best policy both internal and external." 1 Next 
may be eliminated courage, the virtue of the fighters, or 
auxiliaries of the counsellors, which is the " preservation 
in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains 
about the true nature of dangers." Temperance, the 
virtue of the husbandmen, may be best described as the 
" natural harmony of master and slaves, both in states 
and individuals, in which the subjects are as willing to 
obey as the governors are to rule." 2 Now justice, also, 
would appear to be a harmony, and is not with perfect 
ease to be distinguished from temperance. It is, how- 
ever, that harmony wherein each individual minds his 
own business and is not a " busy-body," and each class 
in the state preserves its own sphere. Justice is the 
all-pervading spirit of harmony, the union of the many 
in one, of whole and part in the state. 

Virtue in the Individual. — According, now, to the 
method proposed at the beginning, we are to apply what 
has been found to be true of the state to the individual. 
The individual, then, has in him the three principles of 
wisdom, courage, and temperance ; wisdom being the 
virtue of reason, courage of spirit or passion, and tem- 
perance of appetite. The individual, therefore, " whose 
several principles do their own work will be just, and 
will do his own work." " Assuming the threefold divi- 
sion of the soul, must not injustice be a kind of quarrel 
between these three — a meddlesomeness and interfer- 
ence, and rising up of a part of the soul against the 
whole soul, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is 
made by a rebellious subject against a true prince, of 
whom he is the natural vassal — that is the sort of 

1 Republic, p. 428. 2 Ibid., pp. 428-434. 



102 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

thing: the confusion and error of these parts is injus- 
tice, and intemperance, and ignorance, and in general 
all vice." 1 Further, the qualities that make a state, 
make a man : the good citizen is the good man. — As a 
corollary to this theory of virtue, it follows that the 
Sophistic notion of virtue as the whim or pleasure of 
the individual, and of justice as the will or pleasure of 
the strongest, 2 is false. And (it may not improperly be 
added at this point) to Plato the Socratic idea that virtue 
is knowledge is not quite the correct one. Virtue, as 
we learn from the dialogue Philebus, is a union of 
" mind," or knowledge, and pleasure, and there is a kind 
of natural virtue consisting in a disposition, uncon- 
sciously acquired, to do right deeds. The great benefit 
of education to the young is the creation in them by it 
of this tendency (unconscious though it may be) to 
take pleasure in good things, to have good instincts, to 
entertain right feelings generally. 3 

State Administration.^ — But how shall the state be 
managed, and, in particular, what is to be done with the 
women and children ? Is not the state to be conducted 
on the principle that " friends will have all things in com- 
mon " ? It is, in the first place, hardly possible to refuse 
to the women the same education that is given to men, 
ridiculous as such a plan may appear at first sight. The 
mere difference as regards the begetting and bearing of 
children is unessential. The education that makes a 
man a good guardian will make a woman, also, a good 
guardian. In the second place, there must be not only 
sameness of education and pursuits but also community, 

1 Republic, p. 444. 8 Ibid., p. 402. 

2 Ibid., Bk. I. 4 Ibid., Bk. V. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. IO3 

or the holding in common, of women and children — "no 
one is to know his own child, nor any child his parent." 
The union of the sexes must be made as " holy " as 
possible, and, to this end, must be under the strict and 
scientific supervision of the wise men of the state. The 
best of either sex must be " united with the best as often 
as possible, and the inferior with the inferior, and they 
are to rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not 
of the other." The union is to be managed secretly and 
by proper officers, who will also take charge of the off- 
spring. There must, of course, be no irregular or ille- 
gitimate unions. But, in the third place, there must be 
community of property. The public spirit of the guar- 
dians must not be allowed to suffer a check from any such 
distinction as meum and tuum. As to the practicabil- 
ity of a state in which there is community of women, 
children, and property, there is, indeed, some doubt. In 
times of war there would be no difficulty; the women 
and children would accompany the men. The children 
should become accustomed to the sight of such dangers 
as they themselves may have to face when they become 
adults. Acts of bravery must be recompensed by in- 
creased liberty to beget children ; acts of cowardice by 
degradation to the rank of husbandmen or artisans. 
Love for the state must be kept pure and strong. It 
remains true, however, that only " when philosophers 
rule, or the kings and princes of this world have the 
spirit and power of philosophy, will this ideal state, as 
has been said, have a possibility of life and behold the 
light of day." But the theory is, nevertheless, none the 
worse as a theory " because we are unable to prove the 



104 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

possibility of a city being ordered in the manner de- 
scribed." 1 

The False Forms of State and their Genesis. — Having 
constructed the pattern state, which he designates as the 
Aristocracy, Plato gives, with a view to showing still 
more pointedly the nature of justice and injustice and 
the relation between them and happiness and misery, an 
analysis of the false forms of the state, together with 
the kinds of individuals corresponding to them, and of 
the genesis of these forms and the classes of individuals 
corresponding to them. The false forms of the state 
are four in number ; the timocracy, or government of 
honor ; the oligarchy, or government of the few and the 
rich ; the democracy, or government of the (uneducated) 
multitude; and tyranny. There are, of course, four 
sorts of individuals to correspond with these. The false 
forms of the state, taken in the order in which they 
have just been named, are regarded by Plato as succes- 
sive degenerations of the true form, or aristocracy, i.e., 
the government of the wisest and best. " All political 
changes originate in divisions of the actual governing 
power," that is, in strife. Now the strife by which aris- 
tocracy degenerates into timocracy arises in the following 
way. The guardians losing, through ignorance and mis- 
management, the control of marriages and births, there 
springs up a weaker race, which undervalues knowledge 
and culture, and, lacking thus the principle of harmony, 
falls into inequality, irregularity, and, finally, strife. The 
courageous, or "spirited," element gets the advantage of 
the knowledge-loving and, although the guardian class 
remains the honored class and does not fall back into 

i Republic, Bks. VIII. and IX. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. IO5 

the place of the husbandmen or artisans, philosophers 
are excluded from power, the military class predominates, 
and the state is better fitted for war than for peace : 
one thing, and one thing only, is predominantly seen, — 
the spirit of contention and ambition. Such is the 
timocratical state and its genesis. The timocratical indi- 
vidual and his genesis are like unto them. The son 
of a "brave" but " easy-going" father, he comes to lack 
" single-mindedness towards virtue," and to be a lover of 
power and honor; he is no longer wise and morally sound 
and whole, but ambitious and contentious. Oligarchy 
arises when the desire of power and honor, which char- 
acterizes the timocracy, grows into a thirst for gold and 
exclusive possession. For the realization of this desire, 
force and intimidation are resorted to. The evils of 
such a form of government are manifestly these : riches 
hold the place of knowledge; the state is divided against 
itself, the rich on the one side, the poor on the other ; 
war cannot be carried on because the rich rulers are 
more afraid of the poor subjects than of the external 
enemy of the state ; there is no longer a systematic 
division of pursuits; there is in the state a large floating 
element that has no vital interest in it : in short, oli- 
garchy is a government of the wildest extremes. The 
oligarchical individual is of the same pattern ; avaricious, 
selfish, arbitrarily coercing his better impulses and bend- 
ing all his energies to the hoarding of wealth. Instead 
of rationalizing and ennobling his passions, he keeps 
them in slavish subjection to his one desire, and they are 
ready to turn against him at the earliest opportunity. 
Democracy and the " democratical man " originate as 
follows : the rich come to rule arbitrarily and exasperate 



106 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the poor ; war comes, from within or without, and then 
the rich must fight against or by the side of the poor, and 
there is a general redistribution of power and privileges. 
Then follow false freedom, irreconcilable differences of 
opinion, a throwing off of responsibility to the State, 
entire abandonment of principle, an altogether " charm- 
ing form of government, full of variety and diversity, 
and dispensing equality to equals and unequals alike.'' 
As for the democratical individual, he grows out of the 
oligarchical in the most natural manner possible. He 
just gets a taste of the honey of dissipation and the un- 
restrained gratification of desire, and away fly the old, 
miserly habits, the passions grow fierce and numberless, 
and " insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence," 
under the lead of vain conceit, come trooping into his 
soul in "bright array" called by the sweet names of 
"breeding," "liberty," "magnificence," "courage"! If 
he attemps to reform, he assumes one virtue, then 
another and another, and finally " shakes his head and 
says they are all alike, and that one is as honorable as 
another." He is a rare being, full of "liberty, equality, 
and fraternity," an epitome of all mankind, is emulated 
by all — men and women alike — but he knows nothing 
about order and law. " And now comes the most beau- 
tiful of all, man and state alike, tyranny and the tyrant." 
Tyranny springs from democracy by excess of liberty. 
In the anarchy that follows " when all things are ready 
to burst with liberty," the people " always have some 
champion whom they nurse into greatness " and make 
"protector," and he, with the mob at his back, accuses, 
condemns, and banishes or kills whomsoever he pleases. 
If he is driven out he gets back again, for he is the " peo- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. IO7 

pie's friend " ; then he is more of a "wolf " than ever. 
Happy man ! he natters and is flattered, hates and is 
hated, suspects and is suspected, plots and is plotted 
against, and the state over which he tyrannizes is in a 
most " blessed" condition. The tyrannical individual is 
like unto him. Giving his appetites full liberty he is 
obliged to deceive, to coerce, and to perform deeds of 
violence in order to maintain himself and his rabble. 
He has in him the essence of the highwayman, the rob- 
ber of temples, the man-stealer; is just the sort of crea- 
ture the rabble choose for their leader when anarchy 
comes. No man is meaner and more unhappy than he ; 
none more of a slave, more of a coward — except the 
tyrant in public station. Unquestionably the tyrannical 
man and the tyrannical state are the worst — the most 
unjust and the most miserable — of all. — The upshot of 
Plato's masterly analysis of the false forms of state and 
the individuals like unto them is this: justice and hap- 
piness, whether in the individual or the state, are insepa- 
rable. " Must we hire a herald or shall I proclaim the 
result — that the best and justest man is also the happi- 
est, and that this is he who is the most royal master of 
himself ; and that the worst and most unjust man is also 
the most miserable and that this is he who is the great- 
est tyrant of himself and of his state." 1 

The Eternal Life. — Plato's account of justice does 
not end with his analysis of the state. With him jus- 
tice is a matter of the soul as an immortal being, and of 
the Idea ; and ethics, in the broad sense of the term, is 
more than politics. The paramount thought with Plato 
is that of the Eternal Life, the life of the Idea, or God. 

1 Republic, p. 80. 



108 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Justice, instead of being merely the proper performance 
of duties incident to membership in a social order, is 
the perception, enjoyment, and application of absolute 
truth and beauty ; the being like God, and the living as 
a. member of an eternal order. The just man is the 
child of the gods as well as the state. In all this is to 
be found further proof of the union of justice with hap- 
piness : for the enjoyment of that which, as the pleasure 
of the just man must be, is essential and permanent, is 
itself essential and permanent, and the " gods have a 
care of any one whose desire is to become just and to 
be like God, as far as man can attain his likeness by the 
pursuit of virtue." The true life is therefore a blessed 
life ; the crown of victory in the immortal race belongs 
to the just alone. 1 , 

Beauty and Art. — To the foregoing account of the 
Good we may append a word on Beauty, which is insep- 
arable from goodness. Beauty is the symmetry per- 
vading that mixture of "mind" and "pleasure" which 
constitutes the Good ; and the business of art is to 
reproduce, or imitate, ideal reality, or the symmetry of the 
ideal truth and goodness that are reflected in phenom- 
ena. Plato cares nothing for " art for art's sake " : 
he cares only for the Idea, — a faithful " imitation," or 
representation, of that is respectable, but an "imitation" 
of an "imitation" of it is abominable. The good man 
"imitates" the Idea, and is beautiful; but the tragic 
poet who "imitates " bad men, even perfectly, is a mon- 
ster, "thrice removed from the king and from truth." 2 
"We must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to 
the gods, and praises of famous men are the only poetry 

1 Republic, pp. 612, 613. 2 Ibid., p. 597. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. IO9 

which ought to be admitted into our state." 2 Homer 
and his followers must therefore be expurgated or else 
must be driven out. As for rhetoricians and orators, 
let them learn the nature of the soul and speak accord- 
ingly. The Idea, whether in men's minds or the out- 
ward universe, is sufficient unto itself. Rhetoric as 
practised by the Sophists and professional rhetoricians 
is on a level with the art of cooking ; it is a mere 
" knack," gotten by a kind of accident and having noth- 
ing in common with a science of the soul or with dialec- 
tic, which is the true and only science and art of think- 
ing and speaking. 

The Later Form of Plato ' s Philosophy. — The fore- 
going is a sketch of the philosophy of Plato in that form 
which is most conspicuous in his writings, and has been 
historically the more celebrated and, perhaps, more influ- 
ential. There are certain other doctrines of Plato, later, 
apparently, in origin than those already considered. From 
Aristotle 2 we learn that Plato, who, as we have seen, 
was not completely satisfied with the doctrine of Ideas 
in its earlier form, came, under the influence of Pytha- 
goreanism, to hold that Ideas, instead of being original, 
were derivative, having for their elements, on the one 
hand, the One, and on the other, the Great and the 
Small ; the One being the principle of definiteness in 
the Ideas, and the Great and Small, which are elements 
of "duas" or duality, being the principle of diversity 
and indefiniteness, i.e., the material principle. "Plato," 
says Aristotle, "conceived that, since the Ideas are 
causes of all things else, the elements of them are the 

1 Republic, p. 607. See also Bks. II. and III. 

2 Metaphysics, Bk. I. ch. 6, and other passages. 



IIO GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

elements of all existences. The Great and the Small, 
therefore, are causes as matter {i.e., material causes) and 
the One and Numbers as substance {i.e., formal causes). 
From the Great and the Small Ideas arise by participa- 
tion in the One." Plato held with the Pythagoreans 
that the One is an entity, not a predicate of something 
else ; also that numbers are the causes of existence to 
all other things (than Ideas). But though the Pythago- 
reans identified numbers and phenomenal existences, 
Plato regarded them as separate, having been deter- 
mined so to do by his method. In the later theory of 
Plato, then, Ideas and numbers constitute, as distin- 
guished from phenomenal existences, a class by them- 
selves. Aristotle expressly says, however, that Plato 
held the Ideal numbers to be intermediate between 
Ideas proper and sensible things. Ideal numbers differ 
from ordinary numbers in being qualitatively different 
from one another. This theory of Ideas and Ideal 
numbers has affinity, it will be observed, with the 
doctrine of the Timczus, already stated, that the world- 
soul is mathematical in nature. — In the Laws Plato 
gives a theory of the "second best" (not an Ideal) 
state ; " the first and highest form of the state, and 
of the government, and of the law," being "that in 
which there prevails most widely the ancient saying 
that friends have all things in common " 1 (the form 
described in the Republic). In the Laws, as in the Re- 
public, it is declared that the state has as end the good 
of all, not of any person or party merely. 2 But the good 
is conceived not so much as the Ideal good (the rule of 
the Idea in the lives of men) as the good of man as 

1 Laws, p. 739. 2 Ibid., p. 715. (See Republic, p. 420.) 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Ill 

such. The rulers of the " second best " state need not 
be dialecticians, but only morally and religiously wise 
and prudent men. Instead of philosophy, they have, as 
their guide, religion and the science of number. 1 The 
supreme power in the government is a council of twenty 
persons, ten old and ten young, — priests, " guardians 
of the law," and " the general superintendent of educa- 
tion." 2 Community of property, and of women and 
children, does not obtain in the "second best" state. 
There are, however, certain regulations as to the maxi- 
mum and minimum amounts of property that may be 
held by any person, and as to the disposition of property 
by purchase, sale, marriage, inheritance, etc. ; regula- 
tions, also, regarding marriage, the number of families 
(5040), the disposal of children not heirs. 3 Education 
is strictly a state affair, and men and women are to be 
educated alike. The citizens, of whom there are four 
classes (the class distinction being based on a property 
distinction), devote themselves to the state and their 
mental and bodily development ; agriculture, commerce, 
and the industrial arts generally, being carried on by 
slaves or resident foreigners. The " second best " 
state is (as, indeed, the title of the work expounding 
it should suggest) a state based upon the idea of gov- 
ernment by law instead of by the decisions of wise men, 
or philosophers, merely. It has no immediate relation 
to the Idea, the theory of Ideas playing no part in the 
Laws. 

Result. — The philosophy of Plato is in its genesis a 
synthesis of elements drawn from earlier thinkers, a 

1 Laws, pp. 738, 747, 884, 885, 909. 
2 Ibid., pp. 951, 961. 3 Ibid., pp. 740-745. 



112 GREEK PHILOSOPHY.. 

conservation of most, if not all, of the truth, with much 
of the error (as from a modern point of view it must be 
deemed) contained in the earlier systems. In its idea 
and end it is an attempt to discover a complete and true 
universal of thought and being : no thinker could have 
been more anxious to do full justice to all the elements 
of experience in the effort to comprehend the universe 
in a single mental grasp. But, as has already been sug- 
gested, and as Plato himself saw, there is a certain 
lacuna, or gap, in the system : its first principle, the 
Idea, does not stand in a perfectly concrete relation 
with the terms that require to be united. As the 
Idea is merely Plato's name for perfect intelligence, and 
will, and power, and is the only possible philosophical 
first principle, the system of Plato is not at fault in its 
first principle ; it is at fault, rather, in the want of com- 
plete development of that. Plato has not fully shown 
why and how the Idea is the source of being, of knowl- 
edge, and of goodness. The " ascent to the Idea," 
which Plato describes as so difficult, is made by Plato 
with sufficient truth and reality : it is the " downward 
way" that is imperfectly pointed out and traversed. 
Plato's thought in this part of his system seems, how- 
ever, to have undergone a steady development. At first 
he held that there must be Ideas for all groups of "indi- 
viduals having a common name," x artificial as well as 
natural ; then, that there are ideas for actual natural 
classes only (not, as he had formerly held, of relations 
and negations) ; and, again, that Ideas may perhaps be 
merely "patterns [or types] fixed in nature." 2 This last 
thought, it was left for Aristotle to develop. Finally, in 

1 Republic, p. 596. - ParmcniJcs, p. 132. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. II3 

the Laws the theory of Ideas found no place. 1 Again, 
as to the nearness of Ideas to phenomena, the Ideal num- 
bers of the later theory above-described were evidently 
adopted by Plato as a means of rendering the abstract 
concrete, or of making the " rational real," and the "real 
rational." The mathematical nature of the world-soul 
was assumed for the same purpose. Finally, the notion 
of "participation" was explained as equivalent to "as- 
similation," or the bearing a likeness, to the Idea. Fur- 
ther critical comment on Plato at this point is rendered 
superfluous by the fact that we shall have to consider, 
later, criticisms passed upon him by Aristotle, his truest 
interpreter and the noblest continuator of his phi- 
losophy. 

§ 12. 

The Disciples of Plato. — -The disciples of Plato were 
numerous. 2 But the difficulties that have just been 
pointed out in Plato's doctrines, made it impossible that 
any of them, even Aristotle, should be complete followers 
of Plato. In fact, it has to be said that just what was 
most characteristic in Plato's technical doctrines — the 
theory of Ideas and of the state founded thereon — was 
not adopted without modification and developed, by any 
of his disciples. But there was a marked difference in 
the ways in which the ideas of Plato were taken up 



1 Not given up completely by Plato himself, however; only held in 
abeyance. 

2 See the list given by Zeller in Plato and the Older Academy, pp. 
553-555. not e. 



I 14 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

and developed by his followers, and on the basis of this 
we may divide them into two classes, into which fall, on 
the one hand, Aristotle, who had mastered all of Plato's 
teaching, and had adopted and developed in natural 
sequence a larger portion of it than any other of Plato's 
disciples, and, on the other, certain persons who became 
leaders in the school of Plato, the Academy, after his 
death, and who gave adherence only to comparatively 
limited portions of the Platonic theory, particularly, what 
has above been given as the Later Theory of Plato. 
We take up first these incomplete disciples, the mem- 
bers of the Academy. 

§ i3- 

The Old Academy. — To the Academy in various 
periods of its existence various names have been ap- 
plied. As it was in the period immediately after Plato's 
death, it is known as the Old Academy. The names 
Middle Academy and New Academy apply to it in later 
periods of its existence. At the present moment we 
are concerned only with the the Old Academy, and 
have to speak particularly of Speusippus, Xenocrates, 
Heraclides of Pontus, Polemo, Crates, Philip of Op?is, 
and Crantor. 

Speusippus. — Speusippus, Plato's nephew and succes- 
sor at the head of the Academy (347-339 B.C.), dis- 
carded the Theory of Ideas, and posited many principles 
instead of one, reducing the Idea of Plato to three dis- 
tinct "causes," or "principles," viz., the One, Reason, 
and the Good. He adopted the Pythagorean theory of 
numbers, separating, however, numbers from things. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I I 5 

He slighted physics ; and in ethics advanced the theory 
that the highest good, or happiness, is virtue//^ certain 
external goods needed to make life agreeable, in other 
words, is "life according to nature." 

Xenocrates. — Xenocrates of Chalcedon, the successor 
of Speusippus at the head of the Academy, and the 
most distinguished member of the Old Academy, modi- 
fied the Theory of Ideas, identifying Ideas with mathe- 
matical entities. Following Plato, he held all things to 
be derived from Unity and Duality. He distinguished 
three media of knowledge and three corresponding 
classes of existence : thought (which affords pure knowl- 
edge), perception (which gives knowledge, though not 
pure), and opinion (in which truth and knowledge are 
mixed in equal proportions) ; intelligible objects (beyond 
the heavens), sensible objects (within the heavens), and 
objects intermediate between these (the heavens them- 
selves). The soul, which like all things else springs 
from the two primary causes, Unity and Duality, is a 
self-moved number ; souls differ by virtue of the differ- 
ence in the manner in which Unity and Duality unite 
in forming them. The soul is a spiritual essence, may 
exist apart from the body, and is, in its irrational as well 
as its rational part, immortal. The world is a system of 
graduated existences, is permeated by soul, is ruled by 
gods and daemons, and is eternal. The five elements, 
ether, fire, air, water, earth, originated from atoms. 
Goods are goods of the soul, of the body, and of the 
outer life. Virtue is the highest good. Happiness is 
virtue, or the proper development of natural faculties, 
plus the external goods conducing to it. Wisdom and 
science are related to prudence as the theoretical to the 
practical. 



Il6 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Other Members of the Old Academy. — Heraclides of 
Pontus, who is said to have been " entrusted with the 
direction of the Academy during Plato's last journey to 
Sicily," Polemo, who succeeded Xenocrates as head of 
the Academy, Crates, successor to Polemo, Philip of 
Opus, editor of Plato's Laivs and supposed author of 
Epinomis, a supplement to the Laws, and Crantor, " the 
earliest expounder of Platonic writings," deserve men- 
tion. Heraclides followed Plato in ethics, and the 
Pythagoreans in cosmology, in general, but assumed as 
material principles atomic bodies having the power to 
affect each other not mechanically but by a kind of 
affinity, and affirmed the soul to be an ethereal essence. 
Polemo is said to have devoted himself exclusively to 
ethics, particularly discountenancing dialectical specu- 
lation. 

§ 14- 

Aristotle. 

Life of Aristotle. — Aristotle was born at Stagira, in 
Thrace, in the year 384 b.c. He was the son of 
Nicomachus, friend and physician to Amyntas, king 
of Macedonia. Early left an orphan, he came under 
the charge of a guardian, named Proxenus, a native 
of Atarneus, in Asia Minor. In his eighteenth year 
(367 B.C.), he went to Athens, and for about twenty 
years was associated with Plato, a considerable portion 
of the time, no doubt, as pupil, directly and indirectly. 
Diogenes Laertius says 1 that Aristotle " seceded" 
from Plato, and that there was a tradition that Plato 
once declared, "Aristotle has kicked us off as chick- 

1 Lives of the Philosophers (Bohn's Class. Lib.), p. 1S1 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. W] 

ens do their mother after they have been hatched"; 
but modern critics 1 are unwilling to believe that there 
was any serious breach between master and pupil. 
Every reader of Aristotle knows, however, that Plato 
receives a full share of the criticism that it was Aris- 
totle's habit to mete out to all his predecessors in phi- 
losophy* Aristotle's ability, intellectual independence, 
and disposition to criticise, were doubtless early felt by 
his teacher. Not long after the death of Plato, and 
perhaps because of that, Aristotle left Athens. He 
resided at Atarneus, the native place of his guardian, 
Proxenus, and of Hermeias, a fellow-pupil and governor 
of Atarneus and Assos. Here he married Pythias, a 
near relative or friend of Hermeias, and remained until, 
three years afterwards, Hermeias was betrayed to the 
Persian king to be put to death ; thence he went to 
Mytelene, and from that place, two or three years later 
(342 or 341 B.C.), to the court of Philip of Macedon to 
become the tutor of his son Alexander, afterwards sur- 
named "The Great." What the effect of this relation- 
ship between Aristotle and his pupil was upon the 
mind and future career of Alexander we cannot exactly 
say. By it Aristotle gained a royal friend and patron, 
who rendered him large pecuniary aid towards the prose- 
cution of scientific and philosophical research. At this 
time he obtained King Philip's consent to the rebuild- 
ing of his native city, Stagira, which had a few years 
previously been destroyed in war, and he himself di- 
rected the rebuilding. In 335 B.C., he returned to 
Athens and there established a philosophical school 
(a rival to the Academy) in a gymnasium " attached to 

1 See Ueberweg, Zeller, and Grant. 



Il8 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the temple of Apollo Lyceius," whence the school was 
called the Lyceum. To this school, which became 
flourishing, and to the composition of scientific and 
speculative treatises, the next twelve years of Aristo- 
tle's life were exclusively devoted. From the fact that 
instruction was given while the teacher, or teacher and 
pupils, were walking, or was given in a place called "The 
Walk " (o wepiiraTo^t the school received the name 
of the Peripatetic School. As between Plato and his 
pupils, so between Aristotle and his, the friendliest per- 
sonal relations were cultivated. In 323 B.C., because of 
his friendship with Alexander and other members of the 
Macedonian Court, and his supposed sympathy with the 
Macedonian power, and because of popular, democratic 
animosity towards philosophers, and of religious bigotry 
among the Athenians (for he was formally accused of 
impiety by the chief priest), Aristotle felt compelled to 
leave Athens. He died the next year, on the island of 
Euboea, at the age of sixty-three. From the events of 
his life, from his will, a copy of which may be found in 
the " Life " of him by Diogenes Laertius, and from his 
ethical and political writings, it may be inferred that he 
was a man of probity and good feeling, and deserved 
and won the respect and kindly regard of his fellows. 

General Character of Aristotle s System, and his Chief 
Philosophical Works. — To understand the general char- 
acter of Aristotle's philosophy, not only, but even the 
outward character of his chief philosophical works, it is 
necessary to bear in mind the status of philosophical 
thinking when he began to frame his system. The per- 
sonal element which ^Socrates by his character and 
method had made prominent in philosophy, had been, 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 119 

in large measure, preserved by Plato. Definite and 
penetrating as was Plato's conception of philosophy, 
there is, manifestly, in his writings a large mixture, as 
regards both matter and method, of purely philosophi- 
cal elements with elements not purely philosophical but 
personal ; though in a larger sense of the term than is 
applicable to the Socratic philosophizing, for the per- 
sonal element of the Platonic Dialogues is not merely 
individual and realistic (as is that in Xenophon's Memo- 
rabilia, for example), but largely dramatic and poetic. 
From one point of view, though perhaps not the high- 
est and truest, there is an essential duality in the Pla- 
tonic philosophy, in that it is a compound of philosophi- 
cal and in a sort non-philosophical elements. Now it 
happened that (as must be perfectly evident to any one 
upon even a superficial acquaintance with any of Aris- 
totle's extant writings) Aristotle was, by mental tem- 
perament, just of a nature to observe and feel this 
duality, and to take up and prosecute the inquiry, What 
is and what is not pure philosophy, as regards both mat- 
ter and method ? His earliest works, written probably 
when he was under the immediate influence of Plato, 
were, it is known, dialogues, and were praised by Cicero 
in such terms that we may properly infer that they were 
in part imitations — and not unworthy ones — of Plato 
himself. But his late works, those from which we have 
to draw our knowledge of his philosophy, are evidently 
based on a full consciousness of what is, technically 
speaking, philosophy and what is not, and of the grand- 
divisions of philosophy itself. There had been prac- 
tised from the time of the Sophists a certain art, or 
method, of handling ideas as such. This art, which he 



120 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

found in considerable degree of perfection, Aristotle 
investigated thoroughly, — and was the first who did so, 
— discovering that there was one branch of it that, if 
developed, was adequate to real, or scientific, truth, and 
another that was adequate to probable truth only. This 
art, or method, and particularly the first-named branch 
of it, he thought to be an essential feature in philosophi- 
cal thought (though not a branch of philosophy proper) 
as distinguished from that which is not philosophical. 
He expounded it in certain works, which, taken col- 
lectively, are now known as his Organon, the name 
originating not with Aristotle himself but with certain 
of his followers. The name was adopted because of a 
remark dropped by Aristotle that the thing treated of 
in the works was a means to, or instrument (opyavov) of, 
philosophy rather than a part of philosophy itself. The 
works are, therefore, in large measure merely introduc- 
tory to the strictly philosophical works, though an ac- 
count of his philosophy has to borrow much from them. 
One of the six works constituting the Organon is on 
categories of thought, its title, The Categories ; one on 
terms and propositions, viz., On Interpretation; two 
on scientific proof, or demonstration, The Prior Analyt- 
ics and The Posterior Analytics; and two on probable 
proof, The Topics and The Sophistical Refutations. But 
now, philosophy, as a system, has certain parts or 
branches, distinguished by the having of different ends, 
or objects. According to Aristotle, one branch has for 
its end pure truth as such, another truth in conduct, 
and a third truth in art. 1 The first of these is termed 
Theoretical, or Speculative, Philosophy ', the second, Prac- 

1 Aristotle's Metaphysics, Bk. V. ch. I ; Bk. I. ch. I, De Caelo ; Bk. III. 
ch. 7. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 121 

tical Philosophy, the third, Poetical, or if, for distinction's 
sake, we transfer the Greek term {ttoi^tikt]) without 
alteration, Poietical Philosophy. Speculative Philosophy 
has three branches : First Philosophy (irpayrr} faXocroifcia) 
or Theology, Mathematics, and Physics. The parts of 
Practical Philosophy are Ethics, CEconomics (there is no 
complete genuine Aristotelian treatise extant on this 
subject 1 ), and Politics? First philosophy, or theology, is 
treated particularly in the so-called Metaphysics (= fxera 
ra (f>vcTLfcd = " after or beyond the physics," a name 
given by editors of Aristotle's writings to certain books, 
either because they followed The Physics in the manu- 
script or were regarded as treating subjects logically 
subsequent to "physical subjects"). Physical subjects 
{i.e., subjects relating to nature) are treated in several 
works, the chief of which are The Physics, On the 
Heavens, On the History of Animals, De Anima, or Psy- 
chology. No extant work of Aristotle is devoted to 
mathematical topics. The chief works in Practical Phi- 
losophy are The Nicomachean Ethics? and The Politics. 
The Poetic is the only work exclusively devoted to 
Poietical Philosophy; certain chapters (Bk. V. [VIII.]) 
in the Politics, however, treat important topics in this 
branch of philosophy. Aristotle's Rhetoric stands alone 
as a kind of appendix to the logical and ethical works. — 
As to the time and order of the production of the works 
above-mentioned, it has been conjectured that they were 
written during Aristotle's last residence in Athens, 

1 See Ueberweg, V. 1. I. p. 148. 

2 Metaphysics, Bk. V. ch. 1; Bk. X. ch. 7; Nic. Ethics, Bk. VI. ch. 8. 

3 The Eudemian Ethics and The Great Ethics (Magna Moralia) are 
"Aristotelian," but not Aristotle's own. Certain books (V.-VIT.) of the 
Nicomachean Ethics, however, are probably Eudemian in authorship. 



122 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

while he was at the head of the Lyceum, and probably 
in nearly the following order: 1 ist, The Organon ; 2d, 
The Nicomachean Ethics and The . Politics ; 3d, The 
Poetic and The Rhetoric; 4th, The Physics, On the 
Heavens, On the History of Animals, The De Anima, 
or Psychology ; 5th, The Metaphysics. It seems certain 
that they were all produced after the general idea 
of his system had matured in Aristotle's mind. In this 
regard, as in others, Aristotle's method, we may note 
in passing, was quite different from Plato's. In fact, 
growth is not particularly characteristic of the philoso- 
phy of Aristotle as exhibited in his works. 

Aristotle s Theory of Knozvledge. — We begin the 
exposition of Aristotle's philosophy with an account 
of what Aristotle himself regarded as introductory to 
philosophy proper, viz., his theory of knowledge, of its 
sources and method. 

Kinds of Knowledge. — There are in knowledge three 
fundamental differences that Aristotle takes cognizance 
of in his theory of knowledge : differences as regards 
the object, method, and source of knowledge. Knowl- 
edge may have for its object causes (or first principles) 
or phenomena. Its method may be apodictic (demon- 
strative) or dialectic ("probable"). Its source maybe 
sense or reason. 

Scientific, or Philosophical Knowledge. — Scientific, or 
philosophical, knowledge {iiricm^rj) is knowledge, the 
subject of which is causes (apyai), the method, demon- 
stration (aTToBeigis;), and the source, reason (vovs). In 
the knowledge of causes is involved the knowledge of 
whatever else can be shown demonstratively to flow 

1 Compare the statements of Ueberweg, Zeller, Grant, and Wallace. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 23 

from them ; and a theory of scientific knowledge is an 
account of the source from, or faculty by, which we get 
the knowledge of causes, and of the method of demon- 
stration. Now it was natural, both from the previous 
history of speculation and the character of the problem 
itself, that Aristotle should consider the latter part of 
the problem of scientific knowledge first, which he does, 
particularly in the Prior Analytics. 

Demonstration. — Considered as regards method, 
knowledge is scientific, or demonstrative, when it is 
derived from certain, or necessary, premises by a certain, 
or necessary, process of reasoning. 

The Syllogism (Deductive). — Now the process in 
which, certain things being assumed as true, a certain 
other thing obtains, necessarily and because of the 
things assumed, is called by Aristotle the Syllogism. 1 
The syllogism is, therefore, the central point in the 
method of demonstration expounded by Aristotle ; it 
was regarded, and rightly so, as his own discovery. 2 
The syllogism (o-vWoyio-fjLos) consists of three proposi- 
tions : two premises (Trpordcreis) and a conclusion 
(a-v/jL7r6paa/jba) ; and has three terms ippoi), the major 
or larger term (jiec&v cucpov), the minor or smaller term 
(eXaTTov a/cpov), and the middle (jieaov), which may be 
larger in compass than either of the others or between 
them. The middle term is so called because it is the 
mean, or uniting term, in the syllogism. 3 — The members 

1 Prior Analytics, I. I. The reader cannot do better here than to fol- 
low the account of Aristotle's logic given in Wallace's Outlines of the Philos- 
ophy of Aristotle. 2 Soph. Elench,ch. 33. 

3 Prior Analytics, Bk. I. chs. 25, 1 , 4, 5, 32, 26, 6 (see Wallace's Out- 
lines, pp. 37-39). 



124 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

of the syllogism are propositions. Propositions may be 
either affirmative or negative, universal, particular, or 
indefinite. There are four sorts of propositions that 
may enter into the syllogism : the universal affirmative, 
the universal negative, the particular affirmative, the 
particular negative. As regards the relations of these, 
— the universal affirmative and particular negative are 
opposed as contradictories (avrifyaTucw avTiKeiaQai) ; 
so are the universal negative and particular affirmative. 
The universal affirmative and the universal negative are 
contrarily opposed (evavrim avrucelaOai). Of contra- 
dictory opposites, if one be true, the other is false : con- 
traries may both be false. 1 — Now the rules of the syllo- 
gism given by Aristotle are, that in every syllogism 
there must be one affirmative premise, there must be 
one universal premise, and terms must not be treated 
as universal in the conclusion which are not so in the 
premises. 3 — Syllogisms differ in kind and scientific 
value according to the relative compass and the posi- 
tion of the middle term. A syllogism in which the 
minor term is "in the whole middle" (i.e., is the sub- 
ject of a proposition of which the middle is predicate) 
and the middle term is "in the whole major" (i.e., is the 
subject of a proposition in which the major is predicate) 
is termed a syllogism of the "first figure" (irpwrov 
a)(f}ixa). In a syllogism of this figure the middle term 
lies "between" the extremes. A syllogism in which 
both major and minor terms are " in [less than] the 
whole middle" (i.e., are subjects of propositions in each 
of which the middle term is a predicate), is a syllogism of 

1 On Interp. 6; Cat. io; Pr. Analyt. I. ch. 2, etc. (Wallace, pp. 29-31). 

2 Prior Analytics, Bk. I. ch. 24 (Wallace, p. 40). 

3 Pr. Analyt. Bk. I. ch. 24 (Wallace, p. 40). 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I 25 

the second figure (Sevrepov cr-y^a). A syllogism in 
which the major and minor terms are each greater than 
the middle {i.e., are predicates of propositions in each 
of which the middle term is subject) is a syllogism of 
the third figure (rplrov <jyf)iia)} (The "fourth figure" 
of modern text-books was not recognized by Aristotle ; 
it did not spring out of his conception of the syllogism.) 
Now the first figure is the only one that gives universal 
conclusions ; the second figure giving only negative 
conclusions, and the third only "particular" conclu- 
sions. It is also the only figure that yields naturally 
and directly in the conclusion all that is contained in 
the premises and no more. We can sometimes derive 
a universal conclusion from the premises of a syllogism 
of the second and third figures, but this can be done 
only indirectly; hence these figures are "imperfect," 
the first alone being "perfect." 2 — The hypothetical 
syllogism (avWoyicr/JLbs e£ viroOeaew^;) is a syllogism in 
which, there being a certain condition, a certain propo- 
sition obtains. The latter, however, may obtain when 
the former does not ; but if the latter does not obtain, 
the former does not. 3 

Definition and the Predicables. — Now the conclusion 
of a syllogism the premises of which are true, states, if 
the conclusion be a universal affirmative and is correctly 
drawn, a scientific truth, and is virtually the expression 
of the essence (ovala), or nature, of some real existence ; 
hence is a definition. The knowledge of the essence 
of a thing embraces a knowledge of the common and 

1 Prior Analytics, Bk. I. chs. 5, 24, 26, 32, 56 (Wallace, pp. 37-39). 

2 Ibid., Bk. I. chs. 1, 5, 7, 23, 24, etc. (Wallace, pp. 39-41). 

3 Ibid., Bk. II. 4 (Wallace, pp. 41-42). 



126 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

characteristic attributes of the class, or genus, to which 
it belongs and of the specific attribute that renders the 
thing an individual representative of the class. In other 
words, the definition (opo?) contains the expression of 
the union of the genus (yevo?) and the differentia 
(Bcd(f>opa) of the thing defined. Other attributes (not 
necessary to definition, however) are the property 
(llSiov), which, though essential, is not a mark of dis- 
tinction, and "the accident (avfju^e^Ko^), which may or 
may not belong to the subject defined. 

The Categories} — Essence, or substance (ovaia), is 
one of the ten aspects, according to Aristotle, under 
which things in general must be viewed. Substance is 
whatever is the subject of attributes, e.g., man, Socrates ; 
and it is either an individual, a species, or a genus. 
Substance in the primary sense is the individual, spe- 
cies and genus being only secondary substance. 2 The 
remaining nine aspects are quantity (irocros = how 
many ?), quality (ttoios = of what kind ?), relation (7rpc? 
tl), place (jrov), time {irore), position (KelaOai), condition 
(e^ety), action (iroielv), passivity {irda^eiv). Of these 
ten — termed categories — substance is principal ; all 
others imply it. These are everywhere employed by 
Aristotle. (The idea of a table of categories may have 
been suggested to him by the Pythagorean table (see 
p. 7).) These categories were not " deduced" in any 
manner from a higher conception by Aristotle, but were 

1 Categories, 4, 7, 8; Topics, Bk. I. 9; Metaphysics, Bk. VI. I, 7 
(Wallace, pp. 25-27). 

2 Aristotle's doctrine of substance, as we shall see in what follows, 
appears inconsistent or at least undeveloped (see Metaphysics, Bk. VIT. 
ch. 7). The above view is the earliest, and the one that seems to har- 
monize best with the theory of categories, in which it occurs. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I 27 

taken empirically, as suggested, perhaps, by the funda- 
mental forms, or "parts," of speech in the Greek lan- 
guage. 

Syllogism {Inductive). — Now causes (in the knowl- 
edge of which or of what can be syllogistically shown 
to flow from them scientific knowledge consists), though 
visible to the eye of reason, are not known to us im- 
mediately. Knowable things are of two kinds : those 
which are prior for us (777)0? vfia<; irporepov) and those 
which are prior by nature (<fiv<rei, irporepov). Of the 
latter-named kind are causes, or first principles. 1 Our 
knowledge of causes, or what is prior by nature, has its 
beginning in our knowledge of things as they are for us. 
The (syllogistic) process by which we reach those firm 
universal propositions which state the essence, or are 
the definitions, of causes is induction (iiraycoy)]), which 
is the " passing from particulars to universals," and is 
the inverse of deduction, which is the passing from 
universals to particulars. 2 Induction, like deduction, is 
syllogistic : for in induction we unite by inference the 
middle term to one of the extremes (major and minor 
terms) by means of the other. Thus, if B is a " middle" 
to A and C, we can prove by means of C that A may 
be predicated of B. For example, let the deductive 
syllogism be, "B is A, C is B, therefore C is A " ; then 
the inductive syllogism is, " C is A, C is B, therefore B 
is A." The conclusion of the inductive syllogism cor- 
responds to the major premise of the deductive. The 
inductive syllogism is a syllogism of the third figure, 
and strictly speaking, its conclusion is not universal 

1 Posterior Analytics, Bk. I. ch. 2. 

2 Topics, Bk. I. 12, 18; Prior Analytics, Bk. II. 23 (Wallace, pp. 
42-44)- 



128 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

but particular. We may, however, assume it to be uni- 
versal if we know that C and B are inter-convertible 
and that "B is C " holds. (The syllogism is then prac- 
tically a syllogism of the first figure.) A real induc- 
tion presupposes a knowledge of all the individuals of a 
class. " No particular kinds of Induction are formu- 
lated by Aristotle, but he has noticed incidentally the 
principle of most of the ' Experimental Methods,' and 
in particular that of the method of concomitant varia- 
tions." x The premises of the inductive syllogism are 
not truths of reason, corresponding to first principles, 
but perceptions of sense. But sense as such gives 
knowledge only of the particular, and we can by induc- 
tion reach universals only on the hypothesis that there 
is a common and permanent nature in the many. The 
idea of a common permanent nature originates in a 
higher faculty than sense. Animals have the faculty 
of sense-perception, but not all animals have the power 
of "retaining one certain thing in the soul" and of 
forming universal notions. Permanency and univer- 
sality presuppose reason. Aristotle, however, allows 
himself to say that sense-perception introduces, or " in- 
forms " (i/ATToiei), the universal. 2 (He compares the 
manner in which the universal unconsciously grows 
out of the particular of sense to the way in which sol- 
diers in battle are caused to fly by the perception of one, 
and then another, and so on, fleeing.) In so far, however, 
as there results from the inductive syllogism something 
that is not given in sense-perception as such (and it is 
by induction only that we reach the first universals that 

1 Wallace, p. 43 ; see Prior Analytics, Ck. II. ch. 23. 

2 See below, pp. 144-146. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 29 

are the foundation of science), induction does not prove 
(cnro$eifcvu<nv) anything (it is not airohei%L<;) though it 
does show (SrjkoT) something. 

Probable Proof ; Dialectical and Rhetorical Method. — 
The foregoing is, in outline, Aristotle's account of sci- 
entific method as employed particularly in speculative, 
or theoretical, philosophy. He recognizes and gives a 
full analysis of another sort of method, which is only 
quasi- scientific and finds place especially in Practical 
Philosophy, — ethics, politics, etc. Here " dialectical," 
or probable, reasoning is employed. In practical affairs 
it generally suffices if we have premises that possess 
only a high degree of probability, and if our conclusions 
have, not absolute validity, but a fair warrant in the 
premises. In such matters it is not always easy or 
even possible to arrive at absolutely correct definitions, 
and it is not always necessary that all steps in our pro- 
cesses of reasoning should be stated, that everything 
should be proved, even plausibly ; indeed, it is better 
that many things be taken for granted, that many things 
be left to the natural bent of mankind towards truth 
and justice. This is the case particularly in rhetorical 
argumentation ; in dialectical reasoning logical method 
prevails though the premises may be only plausible. 1 
In rhetorical reasonings the enthymeme, a ^//^/-syllo- 
gism, having but one premise, and example, by which 
we argue from a particular to a particular (through an 

1 It is a part of Aristotle's catholicity of temper that he shows some 
fondness for this ^ZM-scientific method. Absolute truth, he repeatedly 
says, is not in all cases within the reach of human powers, and it is often- 
times necessary and best to be content with less than that. If we deny 
that this is in any sense a philosophical view, we must throw away his 
works on Ethics and Rhetoric. See below, pp. 148 and 181. 



I30 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

assumed universal), may be employed instead of the 
complete syllogism and induction. 

"First Philosophy,'" or Metaphysics. — We come now 
to Aristotle's theory of Being (to 6v) which at the very 
outset we shall find to be in close agreement with his 
theory of knowledge. Being is fixed or changeable. 
That there is fixed being appears from a consideration 
of the doctrines of Heraclitus and Protagoras. If all 
things are in a continual flux, we have to say that a 
thing is and is not the same at the same moment and in 
the same regard. If we say that contradictory proposi- 
tions are equally true, we practically affirm that all 
propositions and terms mean the same thing, and may 
affirm, for example, that a man is a wall. And if being 
is not in any regard fixed and definite, what becomes of 
affirmation, and demonstration, and rational action ? 1 
Being is, then, in one aspect fixed, and in this aspect it 
is being per se (to bv fj bv), being in the highest sense ; 
it is being that answers to scientific knowledge, and is 
known by us last in order of time, though (and because) 
first in the order of nature. Now the science of being 
per se, being as being (to bv y bv) Aristotle deems to be 
the highest part of philosophy and terms it " First Phi- 
losophy " (7rpcoT7) cj)L\ocro<f)ia). It is what we, following 
the example of the early editors of Aristotle's works, 
term metaphysics. "First Philosophy," then, does not 
treat, as does mathematics, for example, of some phase 
or department of being, but of being taken universally, 
or as such. And just as the "science of health" treats 
of the preservation, the production, the symptoms or 
signs of it, and the capacity for it, so the science of 

l Metaphysics, Bks. Ill and IV. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 131 

being treats of whatever has reference to it, whatever is 
primarily or derivatively being. 

Being; Plato's "Ideas." — But what is being, i.e., 
under which of the categories must we conceive it ? 
Evidently under that which is highest and first, which 
denotes not anything that can be predicated, but is itself 
the subject of all predicates. Being, in other words, is 
substance, ovaia ; and in the highest sense it is indi- 
vidual in nature, since primary substance is the individ- 
ual. 1 Being, or substance, therefore, is not identical 
with those " universals " which Plato held to be being. 
Plato's theory of Ideas is untenable ; because, if the 
Ideas are transcendent and perfectly independent of the 
world of individual phenomenal existences, they are not 
in any explicable manner causes of the existence, or of 
the character of things, or of our knowledge of them. 
If substance is primarily individual, the substances of 
things must be in and with things themselves, and it is 
only on the hypothesis that they are, that we can con- 
ceive them as having anything to do with the existence 
or changes in things or can attain a knowledge of them 
by the process of induction. Universal notions are 
indeed necessary for demonstration's sake, but demon- 
stration does not necessarily presuppose the existence 
of the Platonic universals, because it is necessary, and 
sufficient, for scientific knowledge, if there be a One 
in or among the many instead of being separate from 
and in addition to the many. The supposed participa- 
tion of things in Ideas is therefore a mere fancy, to be 
allowed only in metaphorical speech ; and the Ideas, if 

1 For a different view, see Metaphysics x Bk. VII. ch. 7. 



132 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

there were such things, would be only idle copies of the 
things of the sensible world or mere barren entities, of 
which nothing could be known or said. 1 

Mattel' and Form ; Potentiality and Actuality. — 
Every finite substance is the result of the becoming 
actual of that which already was in possibility. As it 
actually is for us, it is a definite cognizable being ; as 
only possible, it was, relatively at least, indefinite, in- 
cognizable. That by virtue of which it is definite and 
cognizable — relatively or absolutely — is termed its 
form. As it existed in possibility, it was but matter. 
As its actual being is but the realization of its being 
in possibility, every substance contains, or is the union, 
in some manner, of matter and form. The stone out 
of which the statue is made is in possibility a statue 
— is " matter" for a statue. When form {i.e., a particu- 
lar character) is given to it there results the actuality, 
i.e., the statue, which is the union of a certain matter 
and a certain form, and is an individual substance. 
Matter (vXrj) and form (ixopfyrj), it must be observed, are, 
like possibility, or potentiality (hvvafjus) , and actuality 
(ivepryeca), generally speaking, correlative terms, because 
it is the same thing which in one aspect is form and 
in another matter. Not every possibility becomes actu- 
ality, and there is one form which is pure form (God). 
In the union of matter and form there are, in different 
substances, different degrees of preponderance of form 
over matter. Those substances that have stability, 
universality, or, at least, generality, as a characteristic, 
owe this to the largeness of the element of form in 

1 Metaphysics, Bk. I. ch. 9; Bk. VI. chs. 14, 15, 16. Posterior Analyt- 
ics, Bk. I. chs. 11, 8, etc. (See Wallace's Outlines, and Ueberweg.) 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 33 

them, contingency in things being due to the influence 
of matter. 1 A thing is in a state of imperfection as 
long as it is in the process of becoming ; it attains per- 
fection, or is an entelechy (ivreXe^eta), only as actuality. 2 
In this respect, then, actuality is "prior" to potential- 
ity. But it is also "prior" in another respect: we 
know the potentiality only (as we reason by the prin- 
ciple of analogy) from the actuality. The actual is 
partly prior in time to the potential, partly not. The 
child is prior to the man, and yet the existence of the 
child presupposes the existence of a man prior to that 
of the child. The actual is prior to the potential be- 
cause the actual is that which is what it is, whereas the 
potential may or may not be, is therefore not self-iden- 
tical, but self-contradictory. 3 

Causes, or First Principles {apyai). — If, now, we in- 
quire why matter assumes form, why the possible be- 
comes actual, the answer is, that "there must be an 
efficient cause imparting motion from potentiality into 
actuality." Every substance, therefore, involves in its 
existence and nature, matter, form, and efficient power. 4 
These three are consequently principles, or causes. To 
them must be added a fourth, the end (reXos), or final 
cause ; for every thing that becomes, not only is " pro- 
duced from something, by something, and is some- 
thing," but has an end. These four causes — to take 
an illustrative example — would be, in the case of a 
house, as follows : The end, reXos, or final cause, ov 
k'verca, is comfort and protection ; the matter, vXrj, or 
material cause, is earth and stones ; the form, or formal 

1 Metaphysics, Bk. V. ch. 2. 3 Metaphysics, Bk. VIII. ch. 8. 

2 Ibid., Bk. VIII. ch. 6. * Ibid., Bk. VI. ch. 7; Bk. I. ch. 3. 



134 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

cause, to rl rjv elvcu, is the mental pattern or idea in 
the builder's mind according to which it is made ; the 
efficient cause, 66ev r) apxv r VS Atera/3oA%, is the builder 
and his art. 1 But the four causes are not always so 
widely distinct as here. The child is the end of a cer- 
tain process of which the material, formal, and efficient 
causes are in the parent. 2 Again, the end and the pro- 
cess may be the same ; the end of sight is the act of 
seeing, of speculation, speculation. 3 In these two cases 
there is also a certain degree of identity between the 
formal and the final cause, on the one hand, and the 
efficient cause, on the other ; i.e., seeing and speculation 
are "inherent" in him who sees and him who specu- 
lates. Speaking generally, since the final cause of a 
thing is only its form, or ideal nature, //z/.y existence, the 
formal cause and the final cause may, without logical 
inconsistency, often or, perhaps, generally, be regarded 
as one, viz., the formal cause, to ti rjv elvai. Again, in 
beings that have souls the efficient cause is in a man- 
ner identical with the formal and final cause. Thus 
the name formal cause often implies more than its defi- 
nition really contains. Further, form being necessary 
to the actuality of a thing, it is natural to think and 
speak of things as "forms," although they involve mat- 
ter. It is owing to this importance of form that Aris- 
totle comes to speak of form or essence, instead of the 
individual, as substance. 4 The forms of absolute, or 
infinite, substances necessarily imply the existence of 
the actuality of those substances. 



1 Metaphysics, Bk. II. ch. 2. 3 Metaphysics, Bk. VIII. ch. 6. 

2 Ibid., Bk. VII. ch. 4. 4 Ibid., Bk. VII. ch. 7. See above, p. 126. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 35 

Kinds of Real Substance : Immovable Substance, 
God. — Logically regarded, substance is, we have seen, 
of two (three) kinds : substance as individual, as spe- 
cies, and as genus, the first-named being primary, the 
others secondary, substance. Ontologically speaking, 
substance is of two (three) kinds : sensible substances, 
of which one part is mere body and subject to decay, 
and the other is soul and eternal ; and super-sensible, 
" immovable substance." 1 Of the existence of sensible 
substance we need no proof ; the existence of the im- 
movable substance is proved partly, as we have seen, 2 
from the very idea of demonstration, and partly, from 
the known nature of sensible substances. These sub- 
stances change and pass out of being ceaselessly and 
forever. The causes of sensible beings as sensible, are 
other sensible beings, and the causes of these are also 
other sensible beings and so on in infinitum. No such 
being, or substance, has in itself the principle of change, 
or motion : they move or change, produce motion, or 
change, only as moved or changed by some other being. 
We must, then, look for an original source, or cause, of 
motion, or change, which must lie in that which pro- 
duces change, or motion, without itself being subject to 
these. This, then, must be the immovable substance. 
It exists purely as energy and as actuality, and hence is 
separate from the world of change, or motion. 3 If it is 
asked how the immovable substance causes change, or 
motion, the reply must be that it does so as a thing that 
is known and desired, i.e., as a thing that is loved, does. 
It is the source of order in the world, as the general is 

1 Metaphysics, Bk. XL ch. I. 2 See p. 130. 

3 Metaphysics, Bk. XL chs. 6, 8. 



I36 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

of order in the army. From it is " suspended the whole 
Heavens." The life of the Prime Mover is excellent 
and blessed. That perception and that enjoyment are 
the most excellent which are of that which is most 
excellent. It is characteristic of the human mind to 
find its highest satisfaction in the contemplation of it- 
self, the most excellent of the things it has power im- 
mediately to know : much more so is it of the Divine 
Mind, and the life of the Divine Being is therefore, a 
life of blessed self-contemplation. God is just the " en- 
ergy," i.e., the activity and complete realization, of the 
ideal essence of mind, — he is the Thought of Thought. 
His life is eternally what our life is only for short 
periods of time. God is the highest substance, the 
individual that is (in form and efficiency at least) also 
universal : the absolute and eternal, alone of all things 
sufficient unto himself. He is the absolute Good, the 
supreme ideal end of all things else. 

Physics, or the PhilosopJiy of Nature. — We have just 
seen that substance is immovable and movable, and that 
the science of immovable substance, or of substance as 
immovable, is First Philosophy or Metaphysics. The 
science of immovable substance, or of substance as mov- 
able, is Physics, or the Philosophy of Nature. Movable 
substance is of two kinds : that which has, in a manner, 
the principle of motion in itself, and that which has not. 
But the principle of motion in this is the soul ; hence 
Physics discusses, and is primarily the philosophy of, 
the soul. 1 

Essential Character of Nature. — Nature, as having the 
principle of motion within itself, is possessed of a soul, 

1 Metaphysics, P.k. V. ch. 1 ; Bk. X. ch. 3, etc. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 137 

is a living being, and its works are in all respects like 
those of an artist, except that the latter have their effi- 
cient cause outside themselves, whereas the efficient 
cause of the works of nature is immanent. Nature is 
governed by the principle of the end and does nothing 
in vain. 1 The end is an immanent end : the end of the 
plant or the animal is to be just the plant or the animal. 
Nature is both matter and form, but the form prevails 
to such an extent that nature works generally, if not 
always, in the same way and towards cognizable ends. 
There is, indeed, a certain mechanical necessity in 
nature : but it is secondary, not primary, a condition 
merely, not a cause, — just as "heavy" and "light" are 
conditions but not causes with reference to the house 
made by the builder. 2 There is, also, a certain element 
of contingency in nature : there are in the animal king- 
dom monstrosities, which are examples of nature's 
failure to attain to form, or reason. Such failures are 
inherent in matter, which is the contingent cause of 
what is accidental. 3 But in spite of necessity and 
chance, or contingency, nature is governed by form, or 
inherent end. 

Method of the Philosophy of Nature. — As governed 
by the end, or reason, nature is an object of science ; 
and yet owing to the contingency inherent in matter, the 
science of nature, or Physics, is not so purely a demon- 
strative science as is that of being. Careful and com- 
prehensive observation and induction are requisite as a 
basis from which to rise to principles ; truth is not to be 
attained by those who, preoccupied with theories, neglect 

1 De Anima, Bk. III. ch. 12. 2 Physics, Bk. II. 9. 

3 Metaphysics, Bk. V. ch. 7. 



I38 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

facts. 1 But observations and deductions from facts are 
to be governed by the idea of the end : the highest of 
the " causes " of knowledge as of being is in Physics, as 
in Metaphysics, the final cause. 

Motion, Space, and Time. — Motion (/clvrjcris) is the 
entelechy or natural state of the potential as potential. 
In other words the world of matter is inherently a world 
of movement — matter has reality (form) for us only as 
in motion. Motion is distinguished by Aristotle from 
change (jieTafioXr}), which embraces origin and decay, in- 
crease and diminution, alteration (in kind or quality), and 
change in place. Motion is merely a kind of change, 
and includes only the six last-mentioned kinds of 
change, all (six) of which are or involve change in place. 
The six kinds of motion referred to may be grouped into 
three : changes in quality (alteration), in quantity (in- 
crease and diminution), and in "place." "Place" (tottos) 
is not (as we understand it) position, nor the space oc- 
cupied by a body, but the limit presented to a body by a 
surrounding body or by surrounding bodies ; it may be 
compared to a vessel in which water or any other mate- 
rial substance is held. No "place" is empty (there is 
no empty space) ; the world is a plenum. The move- 
ment of bodies is therefore merely an exchanging of 
"places." Space is not infinite but ends with the sphere 
of the fixed stars. The world as a whole is not in any 
"place." The perfect motion is circular ; for only such a 
motion, a motion the path of which is without begin- 
ning or end, answers to the eternal nature of the Prime 
Mover. Such is the motion of the sphere of the fixed 

1 Posterior Analytics, Bk. I. ch. 33/ De Generatione et Corruptions, 
Bk. I. ch. 2. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 39 

stars, upon which God acts, though without touching it. 
Motion is eternal, since every motion of a real thing 
implies, on the one hand, an antecedent motion which, 
again, implies another and so on in infinitum and, on the 
other hand, a subsequent one, which, in turn, implies 
another and so on in infinitum. The eternity of motion 
implies an eternal cause of motion, 1 — a corollary to the 
theorem of the eternity of motion is that of the eternity 
of time. Time is the " number of motion with reference 
to earlier and later." We should have no conception of 
time merely from the idea of a "now." Consciousness 
of succession (arising from the perception of motion) is 
also necessary. Practically, however, every "now" is 
a union of "before" and "after," and so time is in 
itself potentially infinite. Time as a numbering pre- 
supposes a "numberer," infinite time an infinite mind. 2 
The universe has always been, and always will be the 
same. 

The Visible Universe. — The visible universe was 
conceived by Aristotle as a living sphere. Exterior 
to the sphere is the abode of the Prime Mover. That 
part of the sphere nearest the abode of the Prime 
Mover — the region of the fixed stars — partakes of the 
perfection of the Prime Mover, or Deity, dwelling in 
felicity and realizing the highest end of existence ; the 
centre of the sphere, the region of our earth, is the 
place of imperfection. The region of the planets is 
intermediate in character as in place between the other 
two. The material elements are five in number, — 
earth, water, air, fire, ether. Ether, the most perfect 
of them, exists only in the upper heaven, is not subject 

1 Physics, Bk. VIII. ch. I. 2 md%i Bk . vill. ch. I ; Bk. VI. ch. 6, etc. 



140 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

to changes either in quality or in quantity, but to change 
in place only, and has only a circular (perfect) motion. 
Of the other elements, earth is lowest, fire highest, in 
place and nature. They easily pass into one another, 
being active and passive in nature, and are, as compared 
with ether, the fifth element, or quintessence, imperfect 
and the cause of imperfection in the lower world. Their 
motions are not circular : earth moves downwards, fire 
upwards, air and water having intermediate motions. 
Of fire, air, water, and earth all living beings are com- 
posed, homogeneous parts, e.g., flesh or bones, being 
formed of like parts, and heterogeneous of the homoge- 
neous. 

Graduated Scale of Being in Nature. — There is 
throughout nature a gradation of being, and at certain 
points it is with difficulty that beings of one kind can 
be distinguished from those of another. 1 Certain plants 
(e.g., the sponge) very closely resemble animals, and 
the attributes possessed by animals are possessed by 
man in a higher degree of perfection. Life pervades 
even the elements. 

Psychology : Its General Character and Place among 
the Sciences. — Aristotle's work on the soul is the earli- 
est of the distinct systematic treatises on the subject, 
and is based on a careful review of all previous theories 
as well as a profound special knowledge of the subject. 
He takes the general position that psychology is a part 
of the science of physical nature, because the "feelings 
of the soul are inseparable from the physical substratum of 
animal life "; and yet, also, that it is of a transcendental 
character, since there are clear cases of " states " that 

1 On the Parts of Animals, Bk. IV. ch. 5. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I4I 

"are peculiar to the soul alone," e.g., thought. Both 
the purely materialistic and the purely transcendental 
theories of the soul are therefore treated by him as one- 
sided ; and his investigations are both empirical and 
speculative in character. Regarding the place of psy- 
chology among the sciences he says : " The acquisition 
of knowledge is, we conceive, always something high 
and honorable : but one form of knowledge is superior 
to another either in virtue of the self-contained sim- 
plicity of its truths or by the greater dignity and won- 
drousness of its contents ; and on both these grounds 
the investigation of the soul might with justice claim a 
foremost place, and, besides, the knowledge of it is 
thought to have important bearings on truth generally 
and especially on nature : for soul is, as it were, a prime 
factor in animal existence." 1 

Body aud Soul. — Life is a process of nutrition, 
growth, and decay. 2 Where this process goes on, there 
is organic being ; and where there is organic being, there 
is soul. Soul (the principle of motion) may be defined 
as the entelechy, or perfection, of organic bodily exist- 
ence. It is not itself, however, bodily, or material ; it 
has not magnitude nor parts ; nor is it subject to 
motion. If it possessed magnitude, there would be no 
thought, for thought is a unit and may be exercised 
once for all, whereas the parts of a thing are repetitions 
of one another. 2 Since the soul is not a magnitude, is 
not spatial except only "incidentally," i.e., as related to 
body, it does not move itself (topically, or in place), and 

1 De Ani??ia, Bk. I. ch. 1. (See Aristotle's Psychology in Greek and 
English, with Introd. and Notes by Edwin Wallace, etc.) 

2 Ibid., Bk. II. ch. I. 



142 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

is not capable of being moved by anything outside 
itself. 1 It is even better not to say that the soul 
sympathizes or thinks or learns, but that man does 
so by means of the soul. 2 But the soul, though not 
"movable," is the cause of motion, and operates in 
and through the body as a whole and in its parts, de- 
veloping it and using it as an instrument. Just by 
virtue of the unity of the soul, and of its power over 
the body, is the body an organism, the soul being the 
entelechy of the body, the form that gives intelligible 
existence to the body, which is "matter." Body and 
soul are, then, one, as form and matter are one. The 
soul is, indeed, dependent upon the body, but only in so 
far as the body is a condition to its activity, and a con- 
dition, too, to which the soul, as being form, is prior. 3 
The soul, in short, is the efficient, formal, and final 
cause of the body. 4 But the soul is more than the mere 
entelechy of the body. One part of it, we shall see, is 
separable from the body, and has no single and separate 
correlative in the body. 

Parts, or Faculties, of the Soul. — The faculties (Sv- 
vdjjieis) of the soul are those of nutrition (dpeirriKov), 
which includes generation, or reproduction, 5 of sense- 
perception (alo-OijTtKov), of desire, or volition (open/cov), 
of locomotion {kivt^tlkov), and of intellect (BiavorjTLfcov), 

1 De Anima, Bk. I. chs. 2 and 3. (See also ch. 5.) 

2 Ibid, Bk. I. ch. 4. 

3 The existence of the soul in the body is, in other words, a stage in its 
process of self-realization. We can as well say that the body is in the soul. 

4 De Anima, Bk. II. ch. 4. 

5 Ibid., Bk. II. ch. 3. That the nutrition is a function of the soul fol- 
lows from the principle that whatever exhibits an idea or an end belongs 
not to matter but to form. De Anima, Bk. II. ch. 4. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I43 

which embraces understanding and reason. The last- 
named faculty is separable from the body, and is pecu- 
liar to the soul of man. (Animals have all the other 
faculties except, in some cases, that of locomotion. 
Plants have only the nutritive soul.) These faculties 
are related one to another as successive stages in a 
developing life, the higher involving the lower (man 
contains within himself the life of the plant and the 
animal 1 ). By means of the nutritive (reproductive) 
function the (universal) soul gives itself outward per- 
manence, i.e., though the individual dies, the species 
survives. Thus the form has actuality. In sense-per- 
ception, the form (not the matter) of objects is preserved, 
to be transmuted by the higher faculties of the soul. 2 
Desire and locomotion give external reality to concep- 
tions. Reason is the faculty of form purified of all 
sensuous or ^m-sensuous matter. The primary seat 
and organ of sensation is the heart, the brain acting 
merely as a regulator of the heart's action. But per- 
ceptions of sense are gained through five special organs 
(the organs of the five well-known senses), a general fac- 
ulty of sense through which such impressions (e.g., num- 
ber, figure, size) as are not given through any one par- 
ticular organ alone but by all in common, are received, 
and the power of inference. 3 The sense of touch under- 
lies the other four, contact through a medium being 
necessary to render the possible object of sensation 
really such. 4 Of the five senses hearing has the most 
of reason in it. In perception by inference, or "inci- 

1 See what was said above on the Socratic Natural Theology, p. 55. 

2 De Anima, Bk. II. ch. 12. s Ibid., Bk. II. ch. 6. 

* Ibid., Bk. II. ch. 7. 



144 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

dental perception," we learn of sensuous attributes by 
reasoning from concomitant, or accompanying, attri- 
butes. In sense-perception is apprehended not the 
mere individual but what is universal, 1 since sense re- 
ceives the form of objects without the matter of them. 
Springing immediately out of the sense-faculty are phan- 
tasy (cfravrao-ia), or imagination, and simple memory 
(fivrj/jLi]). Phantasy is perception sublated and given a 
^/^^'-permanence and independence but weakened. 
Memory, also, is a permanent, or relatively permanent 
state of the soul, resulting from the lodging of impres- 
sions produced in sense and the imagination : it is conse- 
quently an image of previous states of the soul. 2 Neces- 
sary to memory is the idea or reflection (involving the 
presence of the purely active faculty of the mind, reason) 
that the idea before the mind has previously been before 
it. Repetition of an impression may be spontaneous or 
volitional : in the former case it is an act of pure mem 
ory ; in the latter, of recollection so-called (avduvvTis). 
In this act the mind moves from one idea to another 
connected with it through the implicit idea of similarity, 
contrast, or contiguity, so recalling the idea soi ght. 3 
Such an act has in it a larger degree of spontaneity 
than simple memory, imagination, or sense-perceptio \ 
though even sense is not mere receptivity. Thj activity 
of soul as primarily spontaneous is reason. That there 
is such a faculty appears from the fact that there must 
be a distinct power that perceives the essential nature 

1 Posterior Analytics, Bk. II. ch. 19. Hence the possibility of induction. 
See above, p. 128. See below, p. 146. 

2 Ibid., Bk. II. ch. 19, and De A/emoria, I. 

3 De A/emoria, 2. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 145 

of things, a power different from that which perceives 
things themselves, a power, e.g., that perceives the essen- 
tial nature of flesh different from that which perceives 
flesh itself: in short, a power that perceives and judges 
of form apart from matter. Now this faculty is no doubt 
"unmixed" (as Anaxagoras asserted) with the body or 
with things ; it must, however, if it be anything more 
than a bare potentiality, be capable of having an object, 
and must, therefore, have in it, or be related to, an ele- 
ment of passivity like sense, though different in degree 
and somewhat in kind. There must, in other words, be 
a kind of passive reason, related to the active as matter 
is related to creative mind in the external world. The 
ideas of reason are potentially in the passive reason and 
are brought into actuality by the power of active reason, 
just as potential color is made into actual color by the 
power of light. Now that the ideas thus made actual 
by active reason are ideas of objects is manifest from 
the fact of the unity of reason in man with the reason 
in the external world, and from the fact, also, that in 
sense-perception there must be a unity of subject and 
object as a condition of there being any communication 
between subject and object, — receptivity presupposing 
community of nature. 1 In regard, further, to the nature 
of the relations of the active and passive reason, Aris- 
totle says that the passive reason (which it would seem 
can be nothing more nor less than the ensemble of all 
the powers of the mind beneath pure eternal reason) is 
perishable and can " think nothing without the support 
of the creative intellect," whereas the active is immortal 
and eternal, and eternally thinks. 2 Now the ideas of 

1 De Anima, Bk. III. chs. 4 and 5. 2 Ibid., Bk. III. ch. 5. 



I46 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

active reason viewed merely as possible objects of rea- 
son, or possible forms of its functioning, constitute 
science (eV^m^). The actual employment of these, or 
functioning with them, is speculation (dewpetv). 1 As the 
perfection, or entelechy, of the soul's activities, reason 
presupposes the activities of sense, imagination, simple 
memory, and recollection, and is immanent and implicit 
in these. (Passive memory is thus the middle term be- 
tween reason and the phenomenal real world.) This 
explains why it is that the special senses, and the com- 
mon, or general, sense, still more, apprehend not mere 
individuals but qualities in individuals, and that imagi- 
nation, simple memory, and recollection have a perma- 
nent element in them : that, in short, no operation of 
the mind is purely passive and relative (irrational), 
but all partake more or less of the spontaneity and 
absoluteness of pure reason. The mind has knowledge 
even in sense-perception. The reason that is in the 
world is perceived by the reason in the soul. The 
essences of things it knows absolutely, for they are 
the objects, as they are the creations only of reason. 
Active reason, however, is, according to Aristotle, 
entirely separable from the body, and eternal. Im- 
mortality for the finite individual, consequently, is 
not a necessary postulate of the Aristotelian psy- 
chology. The appetitive and locomotive faculties of the 
soul are related to the others through the feelings 
of pleasure and pain. Every perception, conception, or 
thought awakens a feeling of pleasure or of pain which 
involves the "judgment" that the object of the percep- 
tion, thought, or conception is good or evil, and to be 

1 De Anima, Bk. II. ch. I. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 47 

desired or avoided accordingly. (This "judgment" is 
entirely analogous to the judgment in the purely intel- 
lectual sphere, that a thing is true or false.) The desire 
or aversion thus aroused produces in the heart, which is 
the seat of sensation, feeling, and motion, a certain 
degree of warmth, which, if sufficient, is followed by 
bodily motion, external action. In animals the stimu- 
lating cause of desire or aversion may be only a dull 
perception ; in man it is also, and most characteristically, 
an idea of reason. 1 

Practical Philosophy. — Man as a being that is subject 
to desire limited by reason and leading to choice and 
action, is termed practical. The philosophy of man as 
such a being is Practical Philosophy, to which we now 
naturally come. 

Method of Practical Philosophy. — In accordance 
with his idea that the highest activity of the soul is 
that of reason, or the theoretic faculty, Aristotle affirms 
that the highest and best life for man is a life of contem- 
plation, the life of the speculative philosopher. But this 
proposition, instead of being assumed at the beginning 
as a starting-point for a deductive and scientific treat- 
ment of the subject of man's practical activity, appears 
as the conclusion, or, rather, as a conclusion, of an inves- 
tigation that is only quasi-scientific. Aristotle, in other 
words, after stating in very general terms 2 what the end 
(for every art and every methodical procedure must be 
governed by the conception of the final cause) of the 
science dealing with man as a practical being is, pre- 
mises that different subjects require to be differently 

1 De Anima, Bk. III. chs. io, II, etc. 

2 Nicomachean Ethics. Bk. I. ch. 2. 



I48 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

treated, some, e.g., mathematics, with strictness of 
method, others with greater freedom of method. Po- 
litical science (for such is the name given by Aristotle 
to the science in question) is of the latter class ; human 
affairs are especially uncertain, and here especially we 
must proceed from things better known to us to things 
better known (or knowable) in themselves, i.e., from 
facts to principles. Hence, also, the student in politi- 
cal science should have been " well and morally edu- 
cated " : the inexperienced, ill-educated, or morally 
deficient (whether old or young) are unprepared for 
the study of this science because they have not the 
completeness and excellence of character and informa- 
tion that afford to the student the materials that must 
form the content of the science. 1 

End of Practical Philosophy, or " Political Science." — 
Now the end of Political Science is the (conception of 
the) good of man, and the good of man may be consid- 
ered as the good of the individual and that of the state, 
though these are in essence the same. Political Science 
has, then, two natural branches : Ethics, treating of the 
good of the individual man, and Politics, treating of the 
good of the state. 2 But what is the "good of man"? 
Following a practice common with him, Aristotle dis- 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. I. chs. 2 and 3. We hear much of Empiri- 
cal Psychology at the present day. But this must be of little value if the 
souls empirically studied are poor in quality and attainment. 

2 Perhaps Economics should be included among the Political Sciences. 
" Eudemus {Ethics,!. 8, 12, 18, b. 13) distinguishes between tto\itlkt}- 
oiKovofjaKr], and (ppSvrjcris as the three parts of a philosophy of action ; but 
Aristotle himself nowhere puts the matter so definitely. Cf. however, 
Nic. Eth., VI. 8. 1 141, b. 30, where a similar distinction is implied" 
(Wallace, p. 23). 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY, I49 

cusses current opinions on the subject of the good, and 
pays particular attention to Plato's doctrine of the Good 
as Idea. This doctrine he rejects as being false, chiefly 
on the grounds that it presupposes a real unity among 
things that are one in name only, and that it is too 
abstract for application to the matters in hand (since 
human good is found only in what is practicable for 
man) ; 1 and limits the idea of the Good to that of the 
"good for man." Now the good generally, is that which 
is an end, and the good of man is simply the realized 
end of man as man. The end of man, his peculiar 
function, or work (epyov), is the energizing of the soul 
according to reason ; or, since in reason lies man's 
characteristic quality, we may say an "energy of the soul 
according to virtue " (aperrj) ; or, if there be more than 
one virtue, the "best and most perfect virtue"; and, 
further, "in the most fortunate life since, as neither 
one swallow nor one day makes a spring, so neither 
does one day nor a short time make blessed and 
happy." 2 This realization of the soul's peculiar excel- 
lence we may call happiness. Complete happiness, 
however, does not exist without the presence of certain 
external conditions, such as the possession of friends 
and of wealth ; nor without the element of pleasure, 
since no one can be called truly just who takes no 
pleasure in acting justly, or truly liberal, who takes no 
pleasure in being liberal. 2 

Psychological Basis of Ethics (and Politics). — The 
student of political science must, it is obvious, study the 
soul (though not necessarily with scientific exactness 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. T. ch. 6. 2 Ibid., Bk. I. chs. 7 and 9. 



I50 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

and completeness) ; he must know what its functions, 
which are the virtues, are. Now the vegetative soul is 
not capable of any virtue or the want of any virtue that 
we need consider here. The appetitive soul, though 
rebellious, yet, participates in and submits to reason, 
and has, therefore, a certain capacity for real virtue. 
For present purposes, then, the soul is two-fold, one 
part being reason itself, the other, obedient to reason ; 
and virtues are accordingly of two kinds : ethical 
(rjdL/ccu) and intellectual or dianoetic (SiavorjTLKaL). 1 

Sources and Conditions of Virtue. — Virtue has two 
sources, the intellectual virtues, resulting chiefly from 
instruction, the ethical, from habitual action, or habit. 
Virtue -is, then, not innate and necessary, not a natural 
phenomenon (like, for example, the falling of a stone), 
which is no result of habit but of natural necessity ; nor 
is it, as Socrates thought, identical with knowledge ; but 
the result of habit and teaching as affecting a natural 
capacity. 2 This natural capacity, however, is not such a 
capacity as is, e.g., sight, which requires only to be ex- 
erted to be an " energy." This natural capacity for 
virtue is also a capacity for its opposite. Right instruc- 
tion and right habit are required to render it a real 
capacity for virtue, i.e., a capacity for virtue only. 
Men become just and temperate and brave by per- 
forming actions that are just and temperate and 
brave. In this case, Aristotle remarks, the "energy" 
precedes the "capacity" instead of following it. Virtue, 
being a result of habit, is by Aristotle termed a 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. I. ch. 13. 

2 This is Aristotle's answer to the question, argued by the Sophists and 
by Socrates, whether virtue could be taught. See above, p. 57. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 151 

habit. 1 That it is a habit and not a mere feeling nor 
a mere natural capacity is evident from the circum- 
stance that men are not called good and bad merely 
because of their feelings or their capacities as such. 
Inherently, i.e., without relation to deliberate intent 
or choice (which, as we are about to see, is a con- 
dition of virtuous action), the feelings are morally 
indifferent. Moreover, by our feelings we are said to 
be "moved," by our habits to be of a certain disposition. 
Again, our capacities are ours by nature, but men are 
not good and bad by nature. 2 Now the actions that 
give rise to habits constituting virtues are of a certain 
definite nature. Acts leading to (established) virtue 
must, in the first place, be distinguished from those 
resulting in works of art. The latter class have for 
their end the production of what is excellent in itself, 
without reference to the character or mental condition 
of the doer; but actions are just and temperate, not if 
they have a certain result, but if the doer does them in 
a certain condition of mind ; viz., if, first, he does them 
wittingly ; if, secondly, with deliberate choice, and choice 
of the things done for their own sakes ; and if, thirdly, 
he does them from firm and settled purpose or principle. 
Just acts and temperate acts are such as a just or tem- 
perate man does or would do. The artist is an artist by 
virtue of the possession of a certain kind of knowledge 
and skill ; the conditions just mentioned as conditions 
necessary to the rendering an act virtuous are not con- 

1 Habit (e|ts is from ex elv > t° have, and etymologically = habit) fairly 
means in Aristotle's usage, a fixed and definite power and tendency in 
the soul {i.e., a faculty, almost), not merely a customary mode of action. 

2 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. II. ch. 5. 



152 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

clitions of his action. On the other hand, knowledge 
or skill is only of secondary importance among the 
conditions of virtuous action. 1 But it is necessary 
to show by what sort of habit virtue is constituted. 
Habits, regarded as quantities, may, as dependent upon 
the passions or emotions, be in the mean or may be 
in either extreme, and, this, either as regards other 
habits or ourselves. Virtue must be the habit that is in 
the mean, because virtue, like nature, is more " accu- 
rate " and excellent than any art, and every art as well 
as every science realizes its end by aiming at the mean. 
The ethical mean, however, is, of course, not identical 
with arithmetical, but is determined by an investigation 
involving the application of certain categories, — " the 
time when, the cases in which, the persons towards 
whom, the motive for which, the manner in which " 
actions are performed. 2 Certain convenient rules for 
hitting the mean as regards ourselves are the following : 
one must avoid the worse of two extremes ; one must 
avoid especially that extreme to which he is more in- 
clined ; one must be on his guard in matters pertaining 
to pleasure and the pleasant. 3 

Definition of Virtue. — The foregoing discussion of 
virtue leads to the following definition of virtue : " Vir- 
tue is habit characterized by deliberate choice, in the 
mean relative to ourselves, which is fixed or determined 
by reason, and as the prudent man would determine it." 
There are involved in this definition two points that 
require elucidation, and are, accordingly, (by Aristotle 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. II. ch. 4. 2 Ibid., Bk. II. ch. 6. 

8 Ibid., Bk. II. ch. 9; also Bk. VI. ch. I. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I 53 

or some faithful disciple of his 1 ) further developed in 
later chapters of the Nicomachean Ethics ; 2 viz., What, 
precisely, is deliberate choice ? and What is reason as 
exercised by the prudent man (cfrpovifjLos) ? 

Deliberate Choice. — Deliberate choice must be dis- 
tinguished from voluntary choice. That is voluntary 
choice or action which is made or done wittingly and 
willingly, the origin or cause of which, whether the 
consequence be or not, is in the person making the 
choice or doing the deed. (That is involuntary choice 
or action which is made or done through constraint, or 
through ignorance, not of general and commonly known 
facts or laws, but of certain particular circumstances. 3 ) 
Deliberate choice is calculating choice exercised in re- 
gard to things contingent and within our power to do. 4 
About that which is eternal, or necessary, or in the 
ordinary course of external nature, or irrational, or 
impossible, or purely accidental, there is no deliberate 
choice : it is beyond our sphere. We deliberate about 
means oftener than about ends, for they are more uncer- 
tain. Deliberate choice, as appears from the definition, 
is narrower in range than voluntary choice, which is 
not necessarily calculating, nor exercised with regard to 
things within our power. Children, fools, and madmen 
often exercise voluntary, but not deliberate choice. All 
deliberate choice is voluntary, but not all voluntary 
choice is deliberate. Now, by the definition, a virtu- 

1 It is a common opinion among critics that Bks. V.-VII. of the Nico- 
machean Ethics were not written by A. but by a close follower named 
Eudemus. 

2 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. III. chs. 1-5; Bk. VI. chs. 1-13. 

3 Ibid., Bk. III. ch. 1. See, also, Rhet., Bk. I. ch. 4. 

4 Ibid., Bk. III. chs. 2, 3. 



154 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

ous act or habit is an act or a habit dependent upon 
deliberate choice, but Aristotle maintains, of course, 
that so far as acts are voluntary, they are of an 
ethical character and are classifiable as virtuous or the 
opposite. 

The Ethical Virtues. — The determination of the 
nature of " right reason " as exercised by the prudent 
man requires an examination of the intellectual or 
dianoetic virtues. It is necessary, however, before 
undertaking that, to give an account of the ethical 
virtues. These, together with the corresponding ex- 
tremes in "excess" and "defect," are assumed (not 
demonstrated) by Aristotle to be the following : Cour- 
age (the mean), rashness (the excess), cowardice (the 
defect) ; temperance, intemperance, want of suscepti- 
bility to feelings of bodily pleasure and pain ; liberality, 
or moderateness in the ordinary giving and receiving of 
riches, prodigality, illiberality ; munificence, or right 
measure in large expenditures of money, vulgar ostenta- 
tion in expenditure of money, " smallness " in this re- 
gard ; magnanimity or high-mindedness, vanity, exces- 
sive humbleness ; moderate ambition, or love of honor, 
inordinate ambition, spiritlessness, or want of ambition ; 
mildness of temper, irascibility, insusceptibility to 
anger ; civility, obsequiousness, incivility ; candor, arro- 
gance, assumed self-depreciation ; cleverness of wit, 
buffoonishness, clownishness ; susceptibility to the feel- 
ing of shame, shamelessness, bashfulness ; just indig- 
nation, envy, malice [!] ; justice, equity, and injustice. 1 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. II. ch. 6; Bk. III. ch. 6; Bk. V. Shame 
and indignation are not, A. says, strictly virtues and vices, but are men- 
tioned as illustrations of the doctrine of the mean. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 55 

Special attention may, for illustration's sake, be paid 
here to courage (avSpela), high-mindedness (jjLeyaXoyjrv- 
%/a), and justice (BcKaLoavvrj). Courage is the virtue 
possessed by any one who feels confidence with regard 
to what he ought to feel confidence with regard to, 
from the right motive, in the right manner, and at the 
right time ; and fears in like manner. He whose seem- 
ing courage is a result of anxiety to appear worthy 
of distinction, of experience in matters demanding 
courage, of anger, of hope, or of ignorance, is not 
truly courageous. True courage springs only from the 
love of the honorable, and the suggestions of reason. 1 
"Magnanimity" (high-mindedness) is the ornament of 
the virtues, making them greater and existing only 
where they exist. The "magnanimous" person is a 
person of conscious dignity and worth. He esteems 
honor, or the regard of good men, above all things else 
(though he does not " go in search of it ") ; he does not 
overrate worldly success, is courageous, liberal, inde- 
pendent, not resentful, above flattery, dignified in bear- 
ing. 2 Justice may be divided into universal justice and 
particular justice. Universal justice is the habit of 
obedience to law and of dealing with men fairly, i.e., 
according to the principle of the mean. And since 
there are laws relating to all matters, universal justice 
in a manner comprehends all other virtues, and is there- 
fore perfect virtue, — more admirable than "the evening 
or the morning star." It is greater in perfection than 
the other virtues also, because the exercise of it con- 
stitutes a reference of the individual to others as well 
as himself. It is not a kind, or division, of virtue ; it is 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. III. chs. 7, 8. 2 Ibid., Bk. IV. ch. 3. 



I56 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the whole of virtue. 1 Particular justice, which is one 
of the virtues and not the whole of virtue, is the mean 
relative to the distribution of wealth, honor, or what- 
ever else can be distributed among the members of a 
political community, and to the correction of errors in 
transactions between men. The first-mentioned kind 
of particular justice is termed distributive, the second- 
mentioned, corrective, justice. Distributive justice 
takes account merely of the character and merits of 
individuals ; corrective justice, of the equalities and in- 
equalities of transactions. Distributive justice is based 
upon the geometrical mean, — as is a man's deserts so 
is that which he receives in the distribution : corrective 
justice is based upon the arithmetical mean, — the losses 
of one must be compensated for by the gains of an- 
other. Mere reciprocity is not justice. 2 Justice may 
be also divided into natural and legal. Natural justice 
is that which is " everywhere equally valid and depends 
not upon being or not being received." Legal justice 
is that which rests on enactments. 3 Supplementing 
and perfecting legal justice is equity, which is defined 
as the "correction of law wherever it is defective owing 
to its universality." Through inadvertence or through 
lack of knowledge, on the part of the legislator, the 
law may fail of being sufficiently specific. Its defect is 
supplied by the equitable man, who, feeling bound by 
the law of sympathy, and preferring arbitration to strict 
judicial procedure, takes due account of human failings, 
of the intention of the law-maker rather than the letter 
of the law, of the character and general conduct of 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. V. ch. 1. 2 Ibid., Bk. V. chs. 2, 3, 4, 5. 

3 Ibid., Bk. V. ch. 6. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I 57 

the person accused, of the differences in faults and 
crimes. 1 

" Right Reason" Prudence, and tJie Intellectual Vir- 
tues Generally. — What, now, is the exact character of 
reason as exercised by the "prudent man" in determm- 
ing the practical mean ? The answer to this question 
will be brought out in the discussion of the intellectual 
virtues, which have now to be treated. The under- 
standing has as object either that which is necessary 
and absolutely knowable or that which is contingent 
and only relatively knowable. Things of the first- 
mentioned kind are either principles or consequents of 
these ; things of the second-mentioned class are particu- 
lar objects of experience. Principles are known by 
intuition (1/0O?), their consequents by demonstration 
(iiria-TijiLrj). Intuition and demonstrative thought, con- 
sidered as habits, are virtues, and together constitute 
wisdom ((ro(j)La), the highest of the intellectual virtues, 
— the highest because having reference to the noblest 
things. 2 The intellectual powers or habits the objects 
of which are contingent are art (rexvtf), and prudence, 
or practical wisdom (fypovrjcris), which differ in that the 
principle of the one class (as related to persons) lies in 
the objects themselves, of the other in the doer. 3 Art 
is a certain " habit" of "making" governed by true 
reason; the absence of art, the "habit" of "making" 
governed by false reason. The nature of prudence, or 
practical wisdom, may be further explained by a consid- 
eration of the prudent, or practically wise, man. The 
mark of such a man is the ability to deliberate success- 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. V. ch. io; Rhetoric, Bk. I. ch. 13. 
8 Ibid., Bk. VI. chs. 3, 6, 7. 3 Ibid., Bk. VI. ch. 4. 



158 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

fully respecting the good and expedient in relation to 
living well. Now, as we have seen, no one deliberates 
about things that cannot be otherwise than they are, 
nor about things that are beyond their power to do. 
Prudence, or practical wisdom, then, is not that wisdom 
in which intuition and demonstration are embraced, 
but a certain rational habit having practical reference 
to human good. Wisdom has to do with ends, pru- 
dence with means. But prudence is more than mere 
sagacity or shrewdness or fair-mindedness or intelli- 
gence, though these may be contained in it ; it is the 
moral insight and the tendency to right action that are 
begotten of experience in acting justly, temperately, 
etc. 1 Until prudence is attained, virtue or, rather, what 
appears to be such, is but "natural" virtue, the virtue 
of those "who do what they ought and what a good 
man ought to do " only half -consciously and half-volun- 
tarily. Virtue proper, as distinguished from natural 
virtue, is habit not merely in accordance with, but in 
union with, "right reason," or the perception of the 
true mean. Again, such are the unity and force of 
prudence that, whereas the natural virtues may exist 
separately, the true virtues exist in conjunction. 

Self-Control arid its Opposite. — With regard to the 
question, discussed and answered in the negative by 
Socrates, 2 whether knowledge is "dragged about," or 
overcome, by passion, Aristotle holds that when scientific 
knowledge is present to the mind, passion cannot arise, 
though it may do so " when that opinion which is the 
result of sensation " is present ; and that one who vir- 
tually possesses knowledge may, nevertheless, do wrong 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. VI. chs. 10, II, 13. 2 See above, p. 57. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I 59 

if he fails to use the knowledge he possesses. 1 The 
habit of yielding wrongly to feelings of pleasure and 
pain through the influence of passion is "incontinence," 
or want of self-control. It differs from intemperance in 
not being characterized by deliberate choice or prefer- 
ence. The "mean" habit corresponding to "inconti- 
nence " is self-control. The incontinent man is less 
blameworthy (not more blameworthy, as Socrates had 
held) than the intemperate man. 

Friendship. — Closely related to virtue, if indeed it be 
not a kind of virtue, is friendship. It is certainly a con- 
dition to virtue and is, besides, most necessary, honora- 
ble, and pleasant. It unites individuals and states, and 
is a prime condition of the existence of society : it is 
eminently a subject for the consideration of the political 
philosopher. 2 Friendship exists when there is among 
men a common desire to do good one to another for that 
other's sake. It is "good-will mutually felt." No true 
friendship is based on a love of the merely expedient or 
agreeable ; true friendship is consonant only with a love 
of the good, and exists among those who are themselves 
good. True friendship, however, is both expedient and 
pleasant. Perfect friendship is not merely a habit but an 
energy, and implies intercourse ; it is active rather than 
passive, and consists more in conferring than in receiv- 
ing benefits. Friendship as implying community (of 
interest) is closely related to justice as a bond of union 
among men. 3 By the good man friendship is greatly 
valued, because through it he acquires a second self (in 
others) ; he can contemplate virtue and the good in 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. VII. chs. 3 and 4. 

2 Ibid., Bk. VIII. ch. 1. 3 Ibid., Bk. VIII. chs. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 



l60 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

others better than in himself alone, — and existence is 
desirable for the sake of the perception of the good. 1 
Friendship, that is to say, is practically a species of self- 
contemplation. 

Pleasure and Happiness. — Human good has been 
defined as happiness, which includes, besides virtue, a 
second ingredient, — pleasure ; for pleasure is the agree- 
able consciousness that regularly attends the " energy," 
or perfect activity, of any power, an activity that is noth- 
ing more nor less than perfect virtue. Pleasure differs as 
"energies" differ, the highest pleasures attending the 
noblest energies. True pleasure is what appears such 
to the good man. Pleasure is not a good in itself; it is 
good only as a concomitant of virtue and a condition to 
absolute perfection. 2 Happiness, we have seen, is the 
energy of the soul according to the law of virtue, the 
highest happiness corresponding to the highest virtue. 
But the highest virtue is wisdom, the virtue of the 
speculative, or theoretic, faculty. The energy of this 
faculty is the noblest, most constant, most pleasant, the 
most self-sufficient, the most divine of all. It seems to 
be, in each man, his true self, the " ruling and the better 
part." In comparison with this, ethical energies are of 
secondary importance. Absurd, indeed, it would be 
were each man not to strive his utmost to live in ac- 
cordance with the conception of this, — to be his true 
self! 

Practical Ethics. — Theoretical ethics is not the whole 
of ethics ; men must be virtuous, not merely theorize 
about virtue. Something more than theory is required, 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. IX. ch. 9. 

2 Ibid., Bk. X. chs. 1, 4, 5. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. l6l 

for the making of men virtuous, for the majority of 
mankind are guided not by knowledge but by pas- 
sion ; they must be educated to virtue. And it is the 
business of the state so to legislate that its citizens may 
be provided with all necessary practical conditions to 
virtue. Even should the state neglect the education of 
its citizens, it is the duty of every individual to " con- 
tribute to the virtue of his children and friends." This 
he will best be able to do if he make himself fit to be a 
legislator. 1 This brings us to Politics proper, the sec- 
ond part of the general science of human good. 

Origin of the State? — The state is a growth the germ 
of which is the sexual relation, based on that desire of 
"leaving an offspring like oneself '-' which is "natural 
to man as to the whole animal and vegetable world," 
and those organic and inborn differences among human 
beings whereby some are naturally rulers, others sub- 
jects. Historically prior to the state are the individual, 
the family, or household, and the village, or Community, 
the state being an association "composed of several 
villages," "the village" the simplest association of sev- 
eral households, etc. But the state is in idea prior to 
all these, for man is by nature a " political animal " ; 
were he not, he would have to be a god or a brute. He 
is by nature fitted for the realization of the idea of law 
and justice, of which the state is but the embodiment 
and organ. 3 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. X. ch. 9. 

2 The following outline follows the translation of the Politics made by 
J. E. C. Welldon, M.A. (1883). 

3 Politics, Bk. I. chs. 1 and 2. 



1 62 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

The Family. — The elementary relations existing in 
the family, or household, are, according to Aristotle, 
those between husband and wife, parent and child, mas- 
ter and slave ; and the science of the household has, 
therefore, three branches. Slavery is a natural and 
beneficent institution, owing to the natural differences 
in the intellectual and moral natures of men. The 
function of the slave is mere physical service ; he is a 
tool, or instrument, of his master, the power of the latter 
over him being despotic. The slave is a kind of prop- 
erty. The head of the family rules wife and children 
not as a despot but as a constitutional ruler. Wife and 
children possess the same virtues as the head of the 
family, but possess some of those virtues in a lower 
degree than he. One part of the soul is natural ruler, 
the other natural subject ; a corresponding difference 
exists among persons in society. In every part of the 
household and of the state there is a reference to the 
whole. In the household the whole is contained (ideally) 
in the head of the family ; and the virtue of the child, 
the wife, the slave, has reference to that of the head of 
the family. 1 One branch of the science of the house- 
hold is the art of acquisition, which has its foundation 
in the wealth realized from the products of the earth. 
This is natural finance ; unnatural finance is the art 
of money-getting and trading in money. It is greatly 
subject to abuse. 2 

Criticism of Certain Theories and Forms of the State ; 
Plato and Others. — The theory propounded by " Socra- 
tes " in Plato's Republic has, Aristotle thinks, three car- 

1 Politics, Bk. I. chs. 12 and 13. 2 Ibid., Bk. I. chs. 8-1 1. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 63 

dinal defects ; * it aims at too great unity ; the means 
proposed for the accomplishment of the end proposed 
are inadequate ; the theory is vague, does not lay 
down proper limitations. (i) A state, as an organic 
whole, consists of a number of different kinds of indi- 
viduals ; the idea proposed in the Republic as the end to 
be realized is the idea of a household or an individual 
rather than of a state. The Platonic theory in its prin- 
ciple of rotation in office seems to assume that the actual 
personalities of the individuals who alternately rule and 
submit to authority are alternately changed, since dif- 
ferent personalities naturally belong to those who are 
fitted to rule and those who should be ruled. The 
theory is thus false and self-contradictory. Again, the 
theory is false in the doctrine of unity, because inde- 
pendence is the object to be obtained by society, and a 
real state is more independent than a household or an 
individual. 2 (2) The proposition that all individuals in 
such a state can with equal right " call the same thing 
mine and thine " is a mere quibble. All collectively, 
not distribntiv ely "call the same thing mine." Again, 
people owning things in common care less for their 
possessions than those who individually have property. 
Community of wives and children would fail to conceal 
the parentage of children, and it would, besides, lead to 
endless mistakes, to crime and family pollution. Such 
community would be more appropriate among the hus- 
bandmen than among the guardians, because it dimin- 
ishes, not increases, mutual affection, and so weakens 
the class in which it is practised. The greatest bless- 

1 Politics, Bk. II. chs. 2-6. 1 Ibid., Bk. II. ch. 1. 

2 Ibid., Bk. II. ch. 2. 



164 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

ing in the state is mutual affection : this is the only real 
source of the unity so eulogized by " Socrates." The 
transference of children from one class to another would 
be impossible, and, even if possible, would be an addi- 
tional source of outrage, sensual love, and homicide. 
Community of property is also impossible, — at least in 
the Platonic sense, — as is evident from so simple a fact 
as that of the invariable quarrelling of persons keeping 
a common purse while travelling together. Community 
in the ttse of property is perhaps desirable, but not com- 
munity in the tenure of it. The legislation proposed in 
the Republic has a ''specious and philanthropic appear- 
ance," but is plainly impracticable. The only "commu- 
nity" practicable is that produceable by moral disci- 
pline, intellectual culture, and education. 1 (3) About 
the main body of the state — all, indeed, but the guar- 
dians — little or nothing is determined by the Republic. 
If there be community of wives and children and prop- 
erty among them, how will they differ from the guar- 
dians ; and what will induce them to be ruled by the 
guardians ? There will be two mutually hostile states 
in one. If the husbandmen are given ownership of 
land on condition of their paying a fixed rent to the 
guardians, they will soon become arrogant and intract- 
able. There are also certain minor defects in the 
Republic? To the Laws of Plato nearly the same 
objections are applicable, since, with the exception of the 
community of wives, children, and property, the regula- 
tions are the same in the Laws as in the Republic? Pol- 
ities advocated by Phaleas, Hippodamus, Solon, and 

1 Politics, Bk. II. chs. 3-5. 2 Ibid., Bk. II. chs. 5 and 6. 

3 Ibid., Bk. II. ch. 6. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 65 

others, and the institutions of the Spartans, Cretans, 
and Carthaginians are also reviewed by Aristotle. 

The End of the State. — Man, it has been affirmed, is a 
" political animal," and men would naturally unite in a 
social organization without the motive of a supposed or 
perceived common advantage to be realized in so doing. 
The true view of the state undoubtedly is that it is an 
association the real end of which is not the prevention 
of mutual injury or promotion of commercial exchange, 
though these are secondary objects of its being, but 
a " complete and independent existence, a life of fe- 
licity and nobleness" — -not a life in common merely, 
but a noble life ; the true state is devoted chiefly to 
virtue. 1 

The Nature of the Citizen. — As the state is a com- 
posite entity the elements of which are citizens, we 
have to determine the conception of the citizen. Not 
residence, nor the mere right to appear as plaintiff or 
defendant in a judicial action, nor the possession of free- 
dom, nor the being indispensable to the existence of the 
state, as, for example, artisans and children are, nor all 
of these together, but a "participation in judicial power 
and public office " is the absolute mark of citizenship 
(in a democracy). 2 Now there is a question as to what 
is the virtue of a good citizen. Is it or is it not identi- 
cal with that of the good man ? The answer must be, 
in general terms, that the virtue of the citizen differs 
with different forms of government (for we may assume 
that there are several kinds of polity, or government), 
whereas the virtue of the good man is everywhere the 
same. And even in the same form of government, there 

1 Politics, Bk. III. chs. 6 and 8. 2 Ibid., Bk. III. chs. 1 and 5. 



1 66 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

are different functions to be performed, and hence dif- 
ferent virtues in the citizens as such. The good ruler 
possesses the virtue of prudence {i.e., the virtue of the 
good man), which is not indispensable in the sub- 
ject. Under a polity, however, in which the subject 
may become ruler, and ruler subject, there is doubtless 
an identity between the virtue of a good citizen and that 
of a good man ; and "the virtue of a good citizen may 
be defined as a practical acquaintance both as ruler 
and subject with the rule characteristic of a free 
community." Virtue approximating that of the good 
man is, then, necessary to the citizen ; and it is just 
because of this fact that artisans and children are not 
citizens. 1 

A Polity and its Kinds. — "A polity is an order of 
the state in respect of its offices generally, and espe- 
cially of the supreme office." Polities are of two kinds, 
according as they have for their end public or private 
interest. " When the rule of the individual or the Few 
or the Many is exercised for the benefit of the commu- 
nity at large, the polities are normal, whereas polities 
which subserve the selfish " interest either of the indi- 
vidual or the Few or the Masses are perversions." 2 
Polities may also be divided in accordance with differ- 
ences as regards the governing power, which may be an 
individual or a few persons or many. A normal polity 
of the first sort is termed a Kingship, of the second, an 
Aristocracy (a government by the best, ol apiarot, or 
else for the best interests of the community, to apcarov), 
of the third, a Polity Proper. The corresponding cor- 
rupt polities are the Tyranny, Oligarchy, and Democ- 

1 Politics, Bk. III. chs. 4 and 5. 2 Ibid., Bk. III. ch. 7. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 167 

racy. The real difference between an oligarchy and a 
democracy is a difference as regards wealth, — wealth 
characterizing the former, poverty the latter. 1 

Who should be Rulers. — If it should be asked, 
Who ought to rule ; one, few, or the many ? the answer 
in general terms is, Whatever class embraces in itself the 
largest number of conditions to the good man, i.e., vir- 
tues and external goods such as wealth, birth, etc. Col- 
lectively viewed, the masses or the many would, on this 
ground, generally have the supremacy ; but if there are 
a few men, or if there is even one man sufficiently pre- 
eminent in virtue above the masses, to them or to him 
"all should render willing obedience." 2 From this it 
follows that the democratic form of polity (not, however, 
pure democracy but constitutional democracy) must gen- 
erally be best, though there is a sufficient reason for the 
different kinds of polity in the fact that different kinds 
of populace demand different classes of rulers. "The 
populace which is suited to kingship is such as is natu- 
rally qualified to submit to a family whose superiority in 
virtue entitles them to political command ; an aristo- 
cratical populace is one that is capable of yielding the 
obedience of free men to those whose virtue fits them 
for command as political rulers ; and a constitutional 
populace, one that is capable of rule and subjection in 
conformity to a law which distributes the offices of state 
to the rich according to a principle of desert." 3 The 
kingship is unstable ; for the king cannot, unsupported, 
rule the masses, and, if he have assistants, they may 
become his peers, and he is no longer king. In fact, 

1 Politics, Bk. III. chs 6-9. 2 Ibid., Bk. III. chs. 11-13. 

* Ibid., Bk. III. ch. 17. 



l68 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the tendency of a polity not already constitutional is 
towards a constitutional polity, i.e., a polity resting not 
on the will of one or a few, but on law. In the state as 
in the individual, the universal element rules the partic- 
ular, the intellect (law is the creation of intellect) the 
passions. 1 

The Best Polity. — What, now, is the best polity ? 
In general, it is that which furnishes the highest con- 
ditions to an independent and intelligent, i.e., a virtuous, 
life for individuals and state alike. The state should 
comprise the largest number of persons consistent with 
a comprehensive knowledge, on the part of the citizens, 
of one another and the affairs of the state. The coun- 
try should also be of such size and character in other 
respects that it can be "readily comprehended in a 
single view," i.e., "allow of military succour being 
brought to any point at a short notice." The city 
should be so located with reference to land and sea that 
it will possess independence and security, and yet suffi- 
cient facilities for intercourse with other cities. It must 
have a suitable naval force. The citizens should be 
"spirited" and "independent." There must be food, 
mechanical arts, supply of money, religious ritual, means 
of administering justice. There must be a proper line 
of division between citizens and those who are not citi- 
zens, — the citizens comprising the soldiery and the de- 
liberative class, those not citizens comprising the hus- 
bandmen, artisans, and hired laborers. The lands must 
be partly public, partly private, — public lands defraying 
the expenses of religious worship, and common meals, 

1 Politics, Bk. III. ch. 14-17. The state must have a true psychological 
basis. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 69 

and private lands being so divided that owners (who must 
be citizens) possess portions on the frontier as well as in 
the city. The cultivators of the soil should be slaves. 
The city must be favorably situated with regard to con- 
ditions for health and political and military action. The 
city should be walled and arranged, internally, with ref- 
erence to the convenience of the citizens, buildings ap- 
propriated to religious services (with certain exceptions), 
common meals, " supreme magisterial boards" being in 
the same locality, etc. Education 1 must be the same 
for all citizens, and must be provided by the state, since 
training in the public business should be public, and 
every individual is but a subject member of the state. 
The education provided should be suited to leisure and 
peace rather than business and war, for the virtues rela- 
tive to the former are higher than those relative to the 
latter. It should begin with the physical and ethical 
natures of the child and advance to the purely rational, 
since the natural order of development is from the 
"habits" to reason. Marriage and the begetting of 
children must be regulated by the state. Infancy and 
early youth must be carefully surrounded with the purest 
influences as regards speech and manners and scenes. 
Reading and writing should be taught, because of their 
general utility ; the art of design or painting, for its use- 
fulness as a means to forming right judgment of works of 
art ; gymnastics, because it promotes health and vigor ; 
music, because it is a source of rational enjoyment. 
Since the education of the body precedes that of the 
intellect, the first training of children must be in gym- 

1 Politics, Bks. IV. and V. 



170 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

nasties. Before the age of puberty this should not be 
severe ; for, as the experience of the Lacedemonians 
proves, severe gymnastics renders youths brutal in their 
feelings, and, besides, unfits them for intellectual occu- 
pations. Three years following puberty may be given 
to other studies, then severe gymnastics may be taken 
up. Music comes later, because its chief use is the 
purification of the passions or emotions and the afford- 
ing enjoyment to the rational nature. The Dorian and 
Lydian airs, which are intellectual and emotional, may be 
employed, but not so frequently the Phrygian, which is 
largely physical in its effects. Flute-playing and "pro- 
fessional " musicians are hardly to be encouraged. The 
education provided by the state should, in a word, be 
not that which is indispensable or practically useful 
merely, but that which is, also, liberal and noble. 

Characteristics of Different Polities. — The true states- 
man must possess a knowledge of all possible forms of 
polity and the laws appropriate to each. Differences in 
polities arise from differences in the combination of the 
elements or parts of a polity ; the husbandmen or agri- 
cultural class, the mechanical class, the commercial 
class, the hired laborers, the military class, the rich, or 
the leisured, class, and the public officials, or the delib- 
erative and judicial classes. Two or more of these may 
practically unite in one. Now there are two principal 
forms of polity, viz., Democracy and Oligarchy. "A 
democracy exists when the authority is in the hands of 
the free poor, who are in a majority ; and an oligarchy 
when it is in the hands of the propertied, or noble, class 
who are in a minority." In a democracy either the laws 
or popular decrees may be supreme. If the laws are 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 171 

supreme, the democracy is constitutional. In a democ- 
racy in which popular decrees are supreme there is large 
scope for demagogues. When eligibility to office de- 
pends upon a property qualification or birth, or on the 
actual possession of citizenship, the democracy becomes 
practically constitutional, i.e., is governed by fixed legis- 
lation, because, for want of means and of leisure for 
self-indulgence, the citizens are content with holding 
merely such meetings of the assembly as are indispen- 
sable. Constitutional democracy may then be of three 
kinds. Of oligarchy there are four species : one in 
which a moderate qualification for eligibility to office 
obtains, the poor being in the majority, and every one 
who has sufficient property enjoying full political privi- 
leges ; another in which there is a high property qualifi- 
cation and " officers elect to the vacancies " ; another 
in which office-holding is hereditary ; a fourth, similar 
to the last-mentioned but placing the supreme authority 
in the executive and not in the law. In the first-men- 
tioned form of oligarchy, naturally, the law is supreme ; 
in the second, owing to the power of the rich, the law 
is "accommodated" to the "general principle of the 
polity " ; the third form is ostensibly constitutional, but 
naturally verges towards the fourth, which is monarchi- 
cal. 1 Other forms of polity are Aristocracy, Tyranny, 
and Polity Proper. Strictly speaking, an aristocracy is 
a polity in which the good man and the good citizen are 
identical. But any polity in which regard is had to 
wealth, virtue, and numbers, or to any two of these, is 
termed aristocratical. In a strict tyranny there is an 

J Politics, Bk. VII. chs. 1-6. 



172 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

" irresponsible rule over subjects, all of whom are equals 
or superiors of the rulers, for the personal advantage of 
the ruler and not of the subjects." A polity proper 
is, in general terms, a kind of mean between oligarchy 
and democracy — inclining, however, towards the latter. 
A "criterion of a good fusion is the possibility of 
calling the same polity a democracy or an oligarchy," 
and, further, the known existence in the state of no ele- 
ment anxious for a change of pohty. 1 The best polity 
must be that which appears best when judged by the 
standard of a virtue not beyond the attainment of ordi- 
nary human beings, since the happy life is the mean 
life ; and the best state will, accordingly, be that in 
which the middle classes (as regards wealth) are in the 
majority, or at least hold the balance of power, and laws 
are enacted that aim at the satisfaction of the middle 
classes. The reason why so many existing polities are 
either oligarchical or democratical is that the middle 
class is generally small in them. 2 Every good polity 
has three departments : the deliberative, the political, 
the executive. In democratical polities the function of 
deliberation is performed wholly or chiefly by the peo- 
ple, either collectively or by alternation ; in oligarchical, 
by a few or comparatively few persons ; in a polity 
proper, in some cases, by persons appointed partly by 
suffrage, and in others by persons appointed by lot, or 
in all cases by persons appointed partly by lot, partly by 
suffrage. " The deliberative body is supreme upon all 
questions of war and peace, the formation and dissolu- 
tion of alliances, the enactment of laws, sentences of 

1 Politics, Bk. VI. chs. 7-10. 2 Ibid., Bk. VI. chs* 11-13. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 73 

death, exile, and confiscation ; to it belongs the election 
of officers of state, and to it they are responsible at the 
expiration of their term of office." As regards the 
executive department, some offices are common to the 
various forms of polity, others are peculiar : a council 
is a democratic institution, a preliminary council is oli- 
garchical. The modes of appointment are different in 
different forms of polity. In a democratical polity "all" 
appoint "from all by suffrage, or by lot, or by a combi- 
nation of the two " ; in an oligarchical polity, appoint- 
ment is made of some "from some by suffrage, or some 
from some by lot, or some from some by a combination 
of the two, though the appointment by suffrage is more 
strictly oligarchical than that by lot or by a combination 
of the two " ; in a polity proper the "appointment is not 
vested in all the citizens collectively, but all are eli- 
gible, and the appointment is made either by lot, or by 
suffrage, or both, or in which the persons eligible are in 
some cases all the citizens, in others some of them, and 
the appointment is made either by lot or suffrage or 
both " ; in a polity of the aristocratic sort the " appoint- 
ment is made by some partly from all and partly from 
some, either by lot or suffrage, or partly by suffrage and 
partly by lot." The courts of law — constituting the 
judiciary — are eight in number: a court of scrutiny, 
a court to try offences committed against the state, a 
court to try constitutional questions, a court to try 
cases between officers and individuals respecting fines, 
a court to try important cases of private contract, a 
court of homicide, a court of aliens, a court for the 
trial of petty contracts. The forms of constitution of 



1^4 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the courts in which universal eligibility and universal 
jurisdiction are combined are democratical ; those in 
which limited eligibility and universal jurisdiction are 
combined are oligarchical ; those in which there is a 
combination of universal and limited eligibility are 
"characteristic of aristocracy and a polity." 1 

Methods of Establishing and Maintaining the Various 
Forms of Government. — We have seen that differences 
in democracies arise from differences in the character 
of the population. Differences may also spring from 
differences in the combination of features that are 
peculiarly democratic. But there are two primary prin- 
ciples of all democracies : equality and the rule of the 
majority, and the liberty to live according to one's 
pleasure. Characteristic of popular government are 
the following-named features : " the eligibility of all 
citizens to the offices of state and their appointment by 
all ; the rule of all over each individual and of each 
individual in his turn over all ; the use of the lot in the 
appointment either to all the offices of state or to all 
that do not require experience or special skill ; the ab- 
sence of property qualification or the requirement of 
the lowest possible qualification for office ; the regula- 
tion that the same person shall never hold any office 
twice, or shall not hold it much oftener than once, or 
shall do so only in a few cases, with the exception of 
military offices ; a system of short tenure of offices 
either in all cases, or in all cases where it is possible ; 
the power of all or of a body chosen from all to sit as 
judges in all or almost all, or at least the greatest and 

1 Politics, Bk. VI. chs. 14-16. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 75 

most important cases, such as cases arising out of the 
audit of the officer's accounts, constitutional cases, and 
cases of private contract ; the supreme authority of the 
public assembly in all questions, or at least the most 
important, and of no individual office over any question, 
or only the smallest number possible." " The most 
characteristic feature is the council, except where all 
the citizens receive a large fee for attendance in the 
Assembly." Another characteristic feature is the pay- 
ment of the members of the departments, as far as pos- 
sible. Others are low birth, poverty, intellectual degra- 
dation, the not holding office for life, the decision of 
the majority of both rich and poor, if they agree, and if 
they disagree, of the absolute majority, or in other 
words of those whose collective property assessment is 
higher. There are four forms of democracy : the agri- 
cultural, the pastoral, the mechanical or commercial, 
and the extreme, in which "the popular leaders usually 
enroll the largest possible number of persons in the 
rank of the citizens, conferring political rights not only 
upon all the legitimate children of citizens, but upon 
their bastards, and upon children who are descended 
from citizens upon the side of one parent only, whether 
the fathers or the mothers." Of these, the first is the 
best, the last the worst. 1 It is the business of the legis- 
lator not only to establish democracies, but to provide 
for their security. Such laws should be enacted as will 
cause the poor to be satisfied with their condition. 
They should be subsidized, should be directed to indus- 
trial pursuits, given a share in the enjoyment of the 

1 Politics, Bk. VII. chs. 1-14. 



1/6 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

property of the rich. 1 The best form of oligarchy, we 
have seen, approaches the polity, so-called. In it there 
are two degrees of property qualification, a higher and 
a lower : all persons admitted to citizenship are from 
the better elements of the commons. In an oligarchy 
the military class rules. This has four divisions : cav- 
alry, heavy-armed troops, light-armed troops, marines. 
Only the rich can support cavalry and heavy-armed 
troops, and hence these are peculiarly oligarchical, the 
others being democratical. In a country suited to cav- 
alry, that division of the military class may be supreme ; 
in a country suited to heavy-armed troops that division 
may rule. Oligarchies are preserved by putting upon 
the rich the burden of heavy expenses for sacrifices, 
public buildings, etc., and relieving the poor of all such. 2 
The offices of government must be properly constituted. 
Executive offices are : the superintendence of the mar- 
ket, the superintendence of all public and private prop- 
erty in the city, the superintendence of such property 
in the country and the suburbs of the city, the receiving 
and holding and distributing public revenues, the re- 
cording of public accounts, the levying and collecting 
of fines, the superintendence of military affairs, and 
marine affairs, the auditing of public accounts, the 
giving of preliminary consideration to bills to be pre- 
sented to the public assembly, this last being the 
supreme office. Religious offices are the superintend- 
encies of divine worship, and of the public sacrifices 
that are not assigned by the law to the priesthood, but 
are solemnly celebrated upon the hearth of the state. 

1 Politics, Bk. VII. oh. 5. 2 Ibid., Bk. VII. chs. 6, 7. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I 77 

Other offices are the censorship of boys and women, 
presidencies of gymnastic exercises, and Dionysiac 
Contests. The Guardianship of the Laws is an aristo- 
cratical institution, the Preliminary Council oligarchical, 
and the Council democratical. 

Causes of Political Revolutions, etc. — It remains to 
consider the " nature, number, and character of the cir- 
cumstances which produce political revolutions, the 
agencies destructive of the several polities, the general 
sequence of polities in a revolutionary age, and, lastly, 
the preservatives of polities both generally and individ- 
ually." 1 Generally speaking, the cause of sedition is 
"inequality." The common people are seditious when 
they think they have a smaller share of political advan- 
tages than others have, and the oligarchs when they 
think they have not a greater share than others have. 
In the one case it is from a position of inferiority that 
the people are encouraged to sedition by the hope of 
equality ; and in the other, from the position of equality 
by a hope of predominance. The predisposing causes 
of sedition and revolution are : desire of gain and honor ; 
envy and indignation at the gain and honors of others ; 
the possession of too great power ; fear of punishment or 
of becoming victims of crime ; contempt of the oligarchs 
for the masses, or vice versa ; the disproportionate 
increase of one class in the state ; party-spirit ; gradual 
change in government ; diversity of race ; the localities of 
states (" when the country is not naturally adapted to the 
existence of a single state ") ; the accession of persons of 
high repute or influence to some peculiar office or class 

1 Politics, Bk. VII. ch. 8. 



I78 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

in the state ; an even balance of antagonistic classes in 
the state. Political disturbances may be brought about 
either by force or by fraud. 1 " The main cause of revo- 
lution in Democracies is the intemperate conduct of the 
demagogues, who force the propertied class to combine, 
partly by instituting malicious prosecutions against in- 
dividuals, and partly by exciting the masses against them 
as a body." Democracies are transformed by revolution 
into democracies of a different type and into tyrannies. 
Revolutions in oligarchies are principally of two kinds : 
the oppression of the masses by the oligarchs, and sedi- 
tion among the oligarchs themselves. Sometimes sedi- 
tion in oligarchies is due to demagogues paying court 
to members of the oligarchical party or to the masses. 
Revolutions occur when the oligarchs, having wasted 
their means in riotous living, are eager for innovation 
and strive to establish a tyranny ; and when some of the 
oligarchs suffer a repulse at the hands of others. Over- 
despotism in oligarchies, exciting indignation in mem- 
bers of the governing class, is a cause of sedition. 
Oligarchies are destroyed by the creation within them 
of oligarchies. Revolutions may be the result of acci- 
dental circumstances. In aristocracies one cause of 
revolution is the limitation of the number of persons 
admitted to honors of state. Another cause is the put- 
ting of a stigma upon persons of consequence. Another 
is the exclusion of an individual of strong character 
from honors of state. Another, the existence of exces- 
sive poverty on one side or excessive wealth on the 
other in the state. Finally, the existence already of a 

1 Politics, Bk. VIII. chs. 1-4. 






GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 79 

sedition headed by a powerful individual able to extend 
his authority. The main cause of sedition in polities and 
aristocracies is a " deviation from their proper principle 
of justice in the constitution of the polity itself." Gen- 
erally revolutions are from polities of a given kind into 
others of a similar kind, not into their opposites. Poli- 
ties are liable to dissolution both from external and 
internal causes. Polities are preserved by watchfulness 
against illegality and gradual changes, against the begin- 
nings of revolution, and artifices to impose upon the 
masses; by officials 1 keeping on good terms with citi- 
zens enjoying political privileges ; by the limitation of 
the tenure of office to short periods ; by proximity to 
destructive .agencies which excite alarm and put the 
people on their guard ; by legal regulations for restrain- 
ing frauds and rivalries among the upper classes ; by 
reduction of assessments at the proper time ; by not in- 
vesting any individual with disproportionate authority ; 
by the creation of officers to exercise supervision over 
all whose life or conduct is detrimental in its influence 
upon the polity ; by taking precautions with regard to 
those enjoying remarkable prosperity; by abstaining 
from confiscating the estates and profits of the rich, 
and chiefly by so ordering affairs that officers of the 
state find no opportunity for merely personal gain. 
"There are three qualifications requisite in all who are 
to hold the supreme office of state, viz. : firstly, loyalty 
to the established polity; secondly, the greatest capac- 
ity for the duties of their office ; and, thirdly, the virtue 
and justice appropriate to the polity, whatever it may 

1 Politics, Bk. VIII. chs. 5-7. 



l80 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

be." All legislation beneficial to polities tends to pre- 
serve them in a fixed condition, but most especially 
that which is guided by the principle of the mean. The 
strongest preservative of polities is education in the 
spirit of those polities. 1 The causes predisposing to in- 
surrection in monarchies are injustice, fear, and contempt, 
— the injustice consisting principally in insolence, some- 
times in the spoliation of private property. " Insurrec- 
tion may take the form of an attack either upon the 
person or upon the authority of the rulers." Attacks 
of the first form are occasioned by insolence, by per- 
sonal affronts, by degrading corporal punishment. Am- 
bition may cause insurrection. Tyrannies are destroyed 
by influences from without or within. 2 The preservatives 
of monarchy are, in general terms, the following : mean- 
ness of spirit in the subjects, distrust among them of 
one another, incapacity for affairs, affecting of good 
will on the part of the monarch towards his subjects, 
not exciting the indignation of the masses by lavish 
expenditures, the seeming to collect taxes and impose 
public burdens only for economical purposes, the pre- 
serving an address of dignity without sternness, the 
avoiding of insults to his subjects, moderation in sen- 
sual pleasure, enriching of the city by edifices and dec- 
orations in the assumed spirit of the guardian of the 
public interests, display of religious zeal, inflicting pun- 
ishments through personal agents, the depriving officers 
of their places not suddenly and harshly, but gradually 
and mildly, avoiding oppression, — in short, " wearing 
the appearance not of a tyrant, but of a householder or 

i Politics, Bk. VIII. chs. 8, 9. 2 Ibid., Bk. VIII. chs. 8, 9. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. l8l 

king ; not of a self-seeker, but of a guardian of public 
interests." 2 

The Most Permanent Polities. — The most permanent 
polities are the kingship and the polity proper ; the least 
permanent, oligarchy and tyranny. 

Plato s Theory of Revolution. — The theory of revo- 
lution advanced in the Republic is defective at many 
points. 2 

Rhetoric. — An offshoot of political science and of 
dialectic is Rhetoric, or the art, or "faculty," not of per- 
suasion, but of discovering the possible means of per- 
suasion (as medicine is the art, not of curing disease, 
but of finding and applying all possible remedies that 
cure or tend to cure) ; for it is the science or quasi- 
science of that kind of discourse, particularly, whose 
propositions are drawn from "political science" and 
whose method is borrowed from, or formed after, that 
of dialectic. It is not a science, because neither in 
theory nor in practice does it aim at exact truth but 
only probable truth of matter, or employ perfect rigidity 
of method. It adapts the truths of political science and 
the principles of dialectic to the ordinary life and mind. 
It differs, further, from dialectic in aiming at the pro- 
duction of conviction and not merely at the artistic 
and effective logical combination of propositions. 3 Per- 
suasion may be the result of two classes of "proofs," 
or means of persuasion, designated as scientific and 
unscientific. In the former are comprised arguments, 
the character of the speaker, the disposition of the 
audience ; in the. latter, witnesses, tortures, properly 

1 Politics, Bk. VIII. ch. 2. 2 Ibid., Bk. VIII. ch. 12. 

3 Rhetoric, Bk. I. chs. I, 2. 



1 82 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

taking advantage of the state of the laws, deeds, and 
oaths. Arguments truly adapted for persuasion must 
possess at least a gzeasi-syllogistic character and must 
be composed of propositions that are, or seem to be, 
true or highly probable. The speaker must appear to 
be a person having ability, principle, and good-will 
towards his hearers. The only honorable and other- 
wise properly rhetorical means of controlling the feel- 
ings of an audience are to be found in the honesty and 
good-will of the speaker himself and the knowledge of 
the passions and dispositions of men. True rhetorical 
method does not consist in warping the mind by firing 
the passions. 1 There are three branches of Rhetoric : 
one treating of the " means of persuasion which address 
themselves to the understanding," another of style, and 
another of the arrangement of the parts of the discourse. 2 
There are three kinds of oratory : that which finds place 
in the deliberative assembly, has for its end the expedi- 
ent, and is termed Deliberative Oratory ; that which finds 
place in irregular as well as regular public assemblies 
has for its object the honorable, is panegyrical or vitu- 
perative, and is termed Demonstrative {liri^eiKTiKr]) Or- 
atory ; that which finds place in the courts of law, has 
justice for its object, and is termed Judicial Oratory. 3 
Rhetoric is a useful and legitimate art, because it is in 
harmony with the general tendency in human nature 
towards truth and justice, and is better adapted than 
science to ordinary intelligence, trains the mind to 
look at both sides of a question, and is such a means 

1 Rhetoric, Bk. I. ch. 3; Bk. II. ch. I; Bk. I. ch. 2. 

2 Ibid., Bk. II. ch. 26 and Bk. III. ch. 1. 
8 Ibid., Bk. I. ch. 3. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 83 

of defence for the mind as gymnastic skill is for the 
body. 1 

Poetical, or Poietical, Philosophy (see above, p. 121). — 
Poietical philosophy, or the philosophy of art, is the 
theory of the "habit of making joined with right rea- 
son." Art, together with conduct (or " doing"), has to 
do, we have seen, with the contingent, whereas wisdom, 
including intuition and science, is concerned with being. 
Art, as a form of knowledge, is superior to experi- 
ence, and stands next in rank to wisdom. Under art 
as a whole is included house-building and other purely 
productive arts as well as the "imitative" arts, poetry, 
music, sculpture, etc. In art there are three pro- 
cesses : production, contrivance, and contemplation. 
The immediate end of works of art as such is in 
the works themselves 2 (not in the artist). Art either 
"imitates," or represents, or it perfects that which 
nature has left imperfect. 3 As "imitative," art makes 
prominent the universal element in things. 4 The 
"imitative" arts — poetry, music, painting, sculpture — 
may have for their effects amusement and relaxation, 
rational enjoyment and the purification of the feelings, 
and moral discipline. As a source of amusement and 
relaxation, art "heals" the pain of labor. 5 A rational 
enjoyment arises from the perception of the fact of re- 
semblance between things "imitated" and their "imita- 

1 Rhetoric, Bk. I. ch. I. Attention may here be called to the remark- 
able discussion of the passions and aspirations of men in the first seventeen 
chapters of Bk. II. 

2 Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. VI. ch. 4, and Metaphysics, Bk. I. ch. 2. 

3 Physics, Bk. II. ch. 8. * Poetic, ch. 9. 

5 Politics, Bk. V. chs. 5 and 7. 



184 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

tions," and the discovery that the imitations are repre- 
sentations or symbols of the objects imitated, a discovery 
that partakes of the character of an acquisition of new- 
knowledge. ("All men have by nature a desire and 
impulse towards knowledge." 1 ) Purification of the feel- 
ings takes place when, after an ecstasy of soul produced 
by works of art, we relapse into our normal state, expe- 
riencing "pleasurable feelings of relief." 2 Art affords 
moral discipline, and influences character by teaching 
men to " enjoy right pleasures and entertain right feel- 
ings of liking or dislike." This it does by "imitating," 
or representing, such pleasures and feelings, and pro- 
ducing effects similar to those produced by the original 
causes of them. In music, as has been stated, an 
ethical effect is produced by the Dorian melodies and 
harmonies, an emotional by the Lydian, and a physi- 
cal by the Phrygian. Poetry consists in the imitation 
of actions, manners, and sentiments by means of rhythm, 
melody, and measure, — i.e. y by some or all of these, — 
in narrative or in action. The characters imitated may 
be better or worse, or neither better nor worse, than 
ordinary characters. In tragedy, better, in comedy, 
worse, than ordinary characters are "imitated." Trag- 
edy is the representation in pleasing language by means 
of persons acting and not merely by means of narration, 
of an action having dignity, completeness, and magni- 
tude; producing, by its effect upon the emotions of 
fear (or terror) and pity, a purification of the mind of 
such feelings. 3 The fear and pity (which must not be 
confounded here with horror and compassion) awakened 

1 Metaphysics, Bk. I. ch. I ; Poetic, ch. 4; Rhetoric, Bk. I. ch. 4. 

2 Politics, Bk. V. ch. 7. 8 Poetic, ch. 6. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 85 

by tragedy arise from the contemplation of a worthy 
character undergoing misfortune through some short- 
coming incident to human nature. 1 Comedy is the imi- 
tation of only such worse than ordinary characters as are 
ridiculous merely. Epic poetry resembles tragedy in 
having for its subject an important action having be- 
ginning, middle, and end, but differs in requiring a 
more extended action, in admitting a larger degree of 
the wonderful, in being narrative and employing neither 
music nor the spectacle, and in requiring a nobler dic- 
tion and more stable metre. Tragedy excels epic poetry 
for the following reason : it possesses every excellence 
of the latter and, besides, greater perspicuity and a 
greater degree of simplicity and unity. 2 The chief 
point to be attended to in both kinds of poetry is the 
fable, or story, of the action. As compared with his- 
tory, poetry is the more philosophical, because it gives 
more truthfully the universal element of human life. 3 

Sources and Genesis of Aristotle ' s PhilosopJiy. — We 
have now to consider (briefly) the sources and genesis 
of the philosophy of Aristotle, and its points of contact 
with earlier systems. And it is well to bear in mind 
here that Aristotle prepared a historico-critical sketch 
of Greek philosophy from its beginning down to Plato, 4 
that frequently in various works he refers to and com- 
ments upon the doctrines of earlier thinkers, par- 
ticularly, as we have seen, of his master, Plato, and that 
he was in mental temperament a natural, though not 
uncritical, conservative. It would, perhaps, be safe, 
then, to say, even without comparison of his doctrines 

1 Poetic, chs. 13 and 14. 3 Ibid., ch. 9. 

2 Ibid., ch. 26. 4 See Metaphysics, Bk. I. chs. 3-9. 



l86 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

with those of earlier thinkers, that there was no impor- 
tant doctrine of any earlier philosopher that had not 
passed under his critical notice, and that no lead- 
ing principle of his own was discovered and adopted 
by him without reference, positive or negative, to the 
theories of those earlier speculators. A consideration 
of the sources and genesis of his philosophy and its 
point of contact with earlier systems involves, therefore, 
a glance at the principal features of the earlier Greek 
thought. Aristotle's logical theories appear to be, for 
the most part, new and original with him, and yet it is 
evident that they sprang out of the intellectual condi- 
tions of his age. The time was ripe for bringing 
out of the relative chaos of dialectic, false and legit- 
imate, Sophistic and Socratico-Platonic, the formal 
order of logical system. In metaphysics Aristotle's 
Being and God are in a direct line with the Being of 
Parmenides, the Nous of Anaxagoras, and the highest 
Idea of Plato, and his attempt to unite being and phe- 
nomena through the doctrine of the four causes and the 
conceptions of possibility and actuality is an organic 
continuation of the effort of most of the thinkers be- 
fore him, after Parmenides and Heraclitus, to reconcile 
the grand ideas of these two heroes in early Greek 
thought. The first suggestion of the doctrine of causes 
must, it would seem, have come to him from his teacher 
or his teacher's works, e.g., the Timceus, but, judging 
from his point of view in his history of Greek philoso- 
phy, 1 it seems not improbable that Aristotle himself 
regarded his doctrine of causes as substantially his own, 

1 See above, p. 3. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 87 

and as the summing-up and flower of all previous Greek 
thought ; and there seems to be no reason for denying 
that he was right in so doing. The theory of possibility 
and actuality is peculiarly Aristotelian. The first solid 
"putting" of the idea of a perfectly efficient, concrete, 
intelligent power, an actual immanent (as well as trans- 
cendent) mind must be credited to Aristotle. Possibility 
and actuality as organic unity is, virtually, Aristotle's 
formula for the universe as living, thought-determined 
being. In physics Aristotle deviated very widely, in one 
respect, from almost the whole previous course of Greek 
philosophy ; he declared the world to be uncreated and 
always the same, whereas earlier thinkers, from Anaxi- 
mander down, had held a doctrine either of physical 
evolution or of creation. This deviation finds its ex- 
planation, as we have seen, in the theory that motion, 
the characteristic of the phenomenal world as such, pre- 
supposes, in the last analysis, an eternal being which 
is the eternal cause of motion, — motion consequently 
having no temporal origin. The conception, also, of 
nature as a se/f-rcalizmg end, or system of such ends, is 
peculiarly Aristotelian. In other respects Aristotle's 
theory of nature is, on the whole, that of Plato, and in 
minor points agrees with those of Parmenides, Heracli- 
tus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras. To Plato and Aristotle 
alike the universe is spatially finite ; it is a sphere, of 
which the outer portion is divine in nature, the central 
human and imperfect, the former through a descending 
series giving the law to the latter. Aristotle's definition 
of the elements has points in common with those of 
Parmenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Plato. His 
theory of the soul, the first system of psychology, was 



1 88 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

framed after a thorough review 1 of all previous Greek 
theories on the subject ; and it embodies and unites 
in a truly organic way the real apercus, or true in- 
sights, of those theories. Here as almost everywhere 
else, he follows Plato more closely than he does any 
other thinker. Adopting substantially Plato's subdi- 
vision of the soul into parts and faculties, he yet by 
means of his original insight of the entelechy, or per- 
fect realization, has made a true advance in thought, 
upon Plato, in the mode of viewing the soul as a sub- 
stance, or real unitary being, though it must be con- 
fessed that in his negative attitude towards immortality 
he seems to fall far below the spirit of Plato's teach- 
ing. As regards his ethical doctrines we have already 
indicated sufficiently, perhaps, their relation to Socrates. 
(There are no ethical teachings prior to those of Socrates 
with which it is necessary here to compare Aristotle's.) 
In showing Aristotle's affinity in this respect with 
Plato, we cannot, perhaps, do better than borrow the 
words of Sir Alexander Grant. Aristotle plainly enough 
owes to Plato : " (i) The conception of moral science as a 
whole, — that it is a sort of politics, which is the science 
of human happiness. (2) The conception of the practi- 
cal chief Good, — that it is reXeuov and avrap/ces [' per- 
fect ' and ' self-sufficient '] and incapable of improve- 
ment or addition. (3) The conception that man has 
an epyov, or proper function, that man's aperrj perfects 
this, and that his well-being is inseparable from it. 

(4) The conception of Psychology as a basis for morals. 

(5) The doctrine of Mec-orr)? [the Mean], which is only 

1 Occupying nearly the whole of the first book of the De Anima. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 89 

a modification of the Merpior^ of Plato. (6) The doc- 
trine of (frpoi/rjais, which is an adaptation, with altera- 
tions, of the Socratico-Platonic view. (7) The theory of 
Pleasure, its various kinds, and the transcendency of 
mental pleasures. (8) The theory of Friendship, which 
is suggested by questions started but not answered, in 
the Lysis of Plato. (9) The Agnoiology, a theory of 
Ignorance, in Book XII., — to explain how men can act 
against what they know to be best, — which appears to 
have been considerably suggested by Platonic discus- 
sions. (10) The practical conclusion of the Ethics, — 
that philosophy is the highest good and the greatest 
happiness, being an approach to the nature of the 
Divine Being." 1 Aristotle's theory of the state has 
much less, relatively, in common with Plato's. The 
end of the state, as conceived by both philosophers, 
was, no doubt, the same, viz., the happiness or good of 
the whole, not of any part of the state ; but Plato's pre- 
ferred state was a state governed merely by wise men, 
Aristotle's a state governed by law (made and under- 
stood by the citizens). Each had in view a state that 
should have a true psychological basis, a state in which 
reason and not passion should rule ; but Aristotle's, it 
would seem, is a theory which better accords with 
actual human nature and better provides for the natural 
rule of intellect over passion. Here, as elsewhere, Aris- 
totle follows more closely than Plato the conception of 
the universal immanent in the particular. Aristotle's 
"best polity" has more kinship with Plato's "second 
best" state, expounded in the Laws ; but Plato is as 

1 See Essay in Vol. I. of Grant's Ethics of Aristotle. 



I9O GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

much an extremist in one way in the Laws as he is in 
another in the Republic} Finally, Aristotle (it is easy 
to see) attained to his conception of the state largely 
through a struggle with Plato's, and his divergence from 
Plato here seems to be but a part of that general diver- 
gence which is the result of a natural development in 
metaphysical standpoint. Aristotle's rhetoric, or theory 
of persuasion, is the first systematic philosophical theory 
of the subject it treats, and is mostly original. He had 
thoroughly sifted the Sophistic rhetoric and, instead of 
adopting it or any part of it, condemned it as the false 
art of warping the judgment. Fundamental hints for 
his theory are to be found, however, in the Phcedrus and 
Gorgias of Plato. The idea that men can be really per- 
suaded only by instrumentalities capable of reaching 
their moral and logical faculties and habitudes is quite 
Platonic; but circumstances and Plato's hatred of the 
Sophists having made it his business to destroy false 
rhetoric rather than construct a theory of true rhetoric, 
it falls to Aristotle to construct such a theory, which, of 
course, as a thinker, if not as a stylist, he was qualified 
to do. To the homeliness (if we may apply the term 
here) of the Socratic conception of beauty and the aus- 
terity of the Platonic, there is little in Aristotle's that 
is akin. Aristotle would merely purify and elevate the 
inborn play-instinct in human nature ; Plato would se- 

1 Aristotle has without doubt come nearer to the mean that is within 
reach of a race of beings that naturally tends towards truth and justice. 
The truth would seem to be that Aristotle had an abiding sense of the sub- 
stantial Tightness of his conception of nature as instinct with intelligence 
and hence right and truth, and could afford to rely on the natural positings 
of the human soul. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I9I 

verely restrict feeling and imagination, which, in their 
union, constitute the art-instinct in human nature. 

The Substantial Unity of Plato and Aristotle.- — The 
divergences that have been pointed out between Aris- 
totle and Plato need not blind us to the fact that they 
are, in spite of those divergences, in substantial har- 
mony. This appears immediately if they be compared 
with one who is fundamentally opposed to either, i.e., 
whose first principle is a purely material principle, 
whether water, air, fire, atom (ancient or modern), or 
all these, or any number of them together, — thus viewed, 
Plato and Aristotle are at one, for they are both com- 
pletely committed to the view that spirit, and spirit 
only, is absolute. They do not, it is true, entirely get 
rid of "matter," but treat it as a kind of negative 
function of spirit, or form ; to Aristotle matter is pas- 
sive reason in the world ; to Plato it is a kind of " spu- 
rious reason." The entire weight of Plato's teaching 
was, as we have already seen, thrown into the scale in 
support of the thesis that the real is rational and the 
rational is real, and Aristotle, with many criticisms and 
demurrings, it is true, in regard to secondary matters, 
simply added to Plato's thought the immense weight of 
his own. In fact, probably no other two of the world's 
master-thinkers are in such substantial agreement as 
these two. With such solidarity of thought through- 
out the whole history of human speculative thought, 
the philosophical mind of the world would be really one, 
as indeed it ideally is. Philosophy in itself and philoso- 
phy in its history would be all but identical. 

Result. — We have now to attempt an estimate of the 
worth of the leading features of Aristotle's philosophy. 



1^2 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

In general, it may be said that Aristotle carried the 
development of that conception of mind as absolute 
which Anaxagoras was the first to suggest, to the high- 
est point possible under the circumstances of his age, 
and that he brought philosophy fully around to the 
opposite of the nai've naturalism with which it began. 
That he (together with Plato) established a consistent 
universalistic idealism has often been doubted. God, 
in the system of Aristotle, is, it has been held, a 
dens ex machina, has but an idle, shadowy being, and 
the system ends in dualism. The immovableness of 
being, the transcendence of the Deity, or Thought of 
Thought, the separableness of reason in the soul from 
the other faculties seem, perhaps, to warrant such an 
assertion. But, on the other hand, to make God merely 
the bond of union (even though organic) among the 
parts of nature is to ignore the fact of a separable rea- 
son, and is to be satisfied with the purely naturalistic 
view of the world, — with the naturalistic instead of the 
spiritualistic conception of organic unity. Somehow 
immanent in the world God must be, but he is, also, 
transcendent. Aristotle's category was that of spirit, 
not life merely, and his conception of God, or a tran- 
scendent divine reason, seems to be an excellence, not 
a defect in his system. A great feature in the system 
of Aristotle is its conception of nature, defective as 
that conception in some respect no doubt is. From 
the standpoint of modern physical speculation, Aris- 
totle's theory of nature falls below that of most of his 
predecessors, — Anaximander and other " evolution- 
ists," the Pythagoreans (the centre of whose universe 
was not the earth but the so-called "central fire"), the 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 93 

Atomists (who discovered by speculation something very 
like the modern atom, the hypothesis of which is at 
least accounted as an indispensable " working hypothe- 
sis "). But in that it demonstratively put matter under 
the sway of reason and kept the "object" within the 
sphere of the "subject" and thus made it organic, 
Aristotle's theory far surpassed in philosophic Tightness 
that of any of the early nature-philosophers, and has 
hardly been surpassed by that of any of those who have 
succeeded him. That his theory of the soul, the kernel 
of his theory of nature, has stood the test of centuries 
hardly need be said : his conception of reason and sense 
as organically one is far in advance of widely prevailing 
mechanistic psychological theories of this moment. In 
Aristotle's ethical and political theories there is want- 
ing, no doubt, the clearness and decision of Socrates's 
"All virtue is knowledge," or Kant's "You ought, 
therefore, you can " ; but there is a certain moral poise 
and health in the conception of a just synthesis of 
man's capacities in the right fulfilment of his function 
(epyov), and great strength and stability in the concep- 
tion of virtue as a habit and fixed tendency, the founda- 
tion and moving force of which is eternal reason itself. 
There is, indeed, in the formula describing virtue a theo- 
retical surd, or irrational "quantity," the idea of the 
"prudent man." But we may question whether, after 
all, moral activity is not such a surd, as involving some- 
. thing beside mere calculation, as being only semi-rational. 
Again, contemplation, the virtue of "the philosopher" 
in the Ethics has been felt to be unmoral in character ; 
but here again we may question whether Aristotle is 
not substantially correct. He practically admits that 



194 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

such a virtue is beyond the reach of most men ; is 
there not, nevertheless, a certain theoretical justice in 
holding it to be the most perfect virtue ? Is Aristotle 
so very far from Socrates and Kant in this ? Were not 
the ethical requirements laid down by them more "theo- 
retical " than "practical"? The doctrine that man is 
a "political animal" can, it might seem, never be entirely 
supplanted. But it must not be forgotten that even 
Aristotle, as did Plato, put man the philosopher above 
man the citizen, and that, practically, at least, the notion 
of man as a political animal must, so to say, recede and 
give larger place to that of man as a perfectly self-con- 
scious and self-determining being. Society is an or- 
ganism, not for life merely, but for spirit, and spirit is 
not to be shut up in outward institutions. 

§ is- 

The Peripatetic School. — That, after the death of 
Aristotle, there should arise a thinker who should grasp 
and develop on all sides his philosophy as he had grasped 
and developed Plato's would appear strange indeed ; 
and, as a matter of fact, there was no such thinker. 
The immediate followers of Aristotle comprehended 
and adopted only portions of his system, and those not 
of the highest importance in speculative thought. Of 
the school of Aristotle, the so-called Peripatetic School, 
there were very few thinkers even worthy of being re- 
membered. We speak here of but three — TJieophras- 
tus of Lesbos, Strato of Lampsacus, and Diccearch of 
Messene. Mention will be made later of Peripatetics 
who were, it would appear, scarcely more than Aristote- 
lian editors and commentators. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 1 95 

Theophrastus of Lesbos. — Theophrastus {circa 372 
-287 B.C.) a favorite disciple of Aristotle and chosen 
by him to be his successor at the head of the Peripatetic 
school, gave the theories of Aristotle a marked naturalis- 
tic interpretation ; being apparently moved by the desire 
to bring reason and sense into closer union than, as it 
seemed to him, Aristotle had brought them. He did 
not, however, give up completely the transcendence of 
reason, but treated motion, in which he included, as 
Aristotle had not done, genesis and destruction as a lim- 
itation of the soul, and treated "energy " not merely as 
pure activity, or actuality, but as akin to physical activity. 
He affirmed, practically, that there was no motion that 
did not contain an "energy." This was equivalent to 
giving an absolute character to motion, whereas with 
Aristotle the absolute was unmoved. The alleged 
motions of the soul (Aristotle had denied motion to the 
soul) were of two kinds : corporeal — e.g., desire, pas- 
sion, anger, — and incorporeal, e.g., judgment and the 
act of cognition. He retained Aristotle's notion that 
external goods are a necessary concomitant of virtue and 
an essential to happiness, and " held that a slight devia- 
tion from the rules of morals was permissible and re- 
quired when such deviation would result in warding off 
a great evil from a friend or in securing for him a great 
good." "The principal merit of Theophrastus consists 
in the enlargement which he gave to natural science, 
especially to botany (phytology), in the fidelity to nature 
with which he executed his delineation of Human Char- 
acters, and next to these things, in his contributions to 
the constitution and criticism of the history of these 
sciences." 1 

1 Ueberweg's Hist, of Phil., Vol. I. p. 182. 



I96 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Strato of Lamps acits. — A pupil of Theophrastus and 
the next leader, after him, of the Peripatetic School 
(281-279 B.C.) was Strato of Lampsacus. Strato dis- 
carded the doctrine of the real transcendence of reason, 
and held that there could be nothing in the human in- 
tellect which had not already been in sense. " He 
placed the seat of sensation not in the members of the 
body, nor in the heart, but in the seat of the under- 
standing; gave to sensation a share of the activity of 
the understanding; made the understanding inter-con- 
vertible with thought directed upon sensible phenomena, 
and so came near resolving the thought of the under- 
standing into sense." 1 This was done in the attempt 
to derive from Aristotle's conception of nature as 
a power working unconsciously towards ends a per- 
fectly simple organic (even materialistically so) concep- 
tion of the universe. Strato did not, it would seem, 
busy himself with experimental fact, but erected his 
theory upon a purely speculative basis. The theory of 
Strato is obviously a forward step in the direction taken 
by Theophrastus. 

Diccearch of Messene. — Dicaearch went still further 
and reduced all particular forces, including souls, to a 
single omnipresent, natural "vital and sensitive force." 
Here we have the naturalistic conception of organic 
unity in perfect simplicity. Dicaearch is said to have 
devoted himself more to empirical investigation than to 
speculation. 

§ 16. 

Three Leading Post- Aristotelian Schools of Philoso- 
phy. — We come now to three leading post-Aristotelian 

1 Hitter's Hist, of Phil. 



i 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I97 

schools of philosophy which, though standing in pecu- 
liar opposition one to another, yet are really to be re- 
garded as belonging to the same organic movement of 
thought, and to have a common logical and psychologi- 
cal point of origin. They are known as the Stoics, the 
Epicureans, and the Sceptics (among whom may be 
included the Academicians). 

§ 17. 

The Stoics: Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and Others. 
The Stoic school was founded near the beginning of the 
third century B.C., by Zeno, a native of Cittium in 
Cyprus. Having spent twenty years or more in the 
study of philosophy with teachers of the .Cynic and Me- 
garian schools, and of the Old Academy, — Crates, 
Stilpo, Diodorus, Xenocrates, Polemo, — he opened a 
school at Athens, in a place known as the Painted 
Porch, TToiKiXr) Xrod — whence the name of the school 
— and gained numerous disciples. He became noted 
for the simplicity of his habits of living, the temper- 
ateness and terseness of his speech, and the austerity 
of his manner, which, however, is said to have " relaxed 
at a dinner party." He won great respect from the 
Athenians, "who gave him the keys of their walls 
. . . honored him with a golden crown and a brazen 
statue." 2 In obedience to what he believed a sign 
or omen, signifying that he should end his life, he 
strangled himself. His successor at the head of the 
Stoic School was Cleanthes, a water-carrier, who is 

1 Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno, pp. 259 and following. 



N 



I98 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

described by Diogenes Laertius as industrious, atten- 
tive to the teachings of his master, and wholly de- 
voted to philosophy, but as not intellectually strong, 
and very slow of mind. He did little or nothing more 
as a philosopher than to sanction by his influence the 
teachings of Zeno, being intellectually incapable of de- 
veloping them to any great extent. He wrote numerous 
books and a Hymn to Zeus, which has been called the 
"most important document of the Stoic philosophy." 
The next president of the Stoic school was Chrysippus 
of the Soli, or Tarsus, in Cilicia (or Cicilia), who was 
born about 280 B.C. " He was a man of great natural 
ability, and of great acuteness in every way, so that in 
many points he dissented from Zeno, and also Cleanthes, 
to whom he often used to say that he only wanted to be 
instructed in the dogmas of the school, and that he 
would discover the demonstration for himself." 1 He 
acquired great fame as a dialectician, 2 was vastly indus- 
trious, writing five hundred lines a day, compiling 
(largely from the poets) more than seven hundred books, 
and, it is supposed, expanded portions of the teachings 
of the earlier Stoics, without, however, departing very 
essentially from the doctrines put forth by Zeno. " By 
Chrysippus the Stoic teaching was brought to complete- 
ness ; and when he died, in the year 206 B.C., the form 
was in every respect fixed in which Stoicism would be 

1 Diog. Laert., Life of Chrysippus (Trans, in Bonn's Class Lib.). 

2 "This philosopher used to delight in proposing questions of this sort: 
The person who reveals the mysteries to the uninitiated commits a sin: 
the hierophant reveals them to the uninitiated : therefore the hieiophant 
commits sin. . . . Again, if you say anything, what you say comes out of 
your mouth ; but you say a wagon : therefore a wagon comes out of your 
mouth." Diog. Laert. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. I99 

handed down for the next following centuries." 1 Other 
eminent Stoics were Aristo of Chios, who repudiated 
all philosophy but ethical philosophy ; Herillus of Car- 
thage, who declared knowledge to be the chief good, and 
opposed Zeno in some points ; a certain Dionysius, who 
inclined to the doctrines of the Cyrenaics, etc. 

Stoic Conception of the Nature and Parts of Philosophy! 1 
— It is characteristic of the Stoic philosophers that, 
dividing philosophy into logic, physics, and ethics, 3 they 
laid the chief stress upon ethics, conceiving the real as 
that which acts on, or can be acted on by, us. The 
historical source of this we are to look for, most proba- 
bly, in the conditions of the education of philosophers, 
as well as the general conditions of the times. The 
Stoics were, (in other words) intellectual descendants 
and representatives of the earlier Cynic schools, with 
a large infusion, no doubt, of the dialectico-sceptical 
spirit of the Megarian school and the Academy. The 
general relations between logic, physics, and ethics 
they conceived as follows : The chief good is virtue ; 
virtue is "life according to nature" (a saying of Speu- 
sippus and Xenocrates) ; a true life according to nature, 
must depend upon the having a right conception of 
nature ; but a true conception of nature is reached 
only in a certain way — by a certain method, and by 
the application of a certain standard, or criterion. The 
science of the good is ethics ; of nature, physics ; of 
methods and the criterion of knowledge, logic. Hence, 

1 Zeller's Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics. 

2 Life of Zeno, pp. 274-276. 

3 " Cleanthes says there are six divisions of reason, according to philoso- 
phy : dialectics, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, theology." Diog. Laert. 



200 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

though ethics is highest, and in one sense, first, it is in 
another sense last, presupposing physics, which, in turn, 
presupposes logic. Zeno and Chrysippus compared 
philosophy to an animal ; logic being bone and sinews, 
physics the flesh, and ethics the soul. 

Stoic Logic. — With the Stoics logic is the science 
not only of thought but of expression — a corollary of 
their leading thought (taken in its simplicity) that the 
end of man is action, i.e., to be really and externally 
what he is virtually and internally. The Stoic logic, 
therefore, included much that now falls in the domain 
of grammar ; but it also included what now belongs to 
formal logic, and the theory of cognition, in the nar- 
rower sense, or theory of the sources of ideas and the 
criteria of knowledge. By some of the Stoics, however, 
logic was declared to have for its parts, — rhetoric, " the 
science conversant about speaking well concerning mat- 
ters which admit of detailed narrative " and dialectic, 
the science of arguing correctly in discussions, which 
can be carried on by question and answer [Chrysippus] 
... a knowledge of what is true and false, and neither 
one thing nor the other, 1 etc. Dialectic has two parts : 
one dealing with ideas, and the other with the expres- 
sion of ideas. 

Origin of Ideas? — All ideas, according to the Stoics, 
originate from sensation, or the working of the mind 
upon what is given in sensation. The soul, Zeno held, is 
in sensation affected by external objects, as wax is by the 
seal that is pressed upon it. Perceptions {^avTaaiat) 

1 Diog. Laert. 

2 Diog. Laert., Life of Zeno, pp. 277 and following. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 201 

are impressions upon or in the soul (ru7rcoa€c<; iv tyvxv)- 
Chrysippus preferred to say that perceptions, both ex- 
ternal and internal, are changes of the soul (erepcbaeis 
•tywxfjs), to regard perception as active rather than pas- 
sive ; i.e., as a grasping (fcardXrjyfr^) of the object instead 
of a being impressed by it. Perceptions remaining in 
the soul after the act of perception become memories, 
which taken in their unity, or as a whole, become expe- 
rience, this in turn being the basis of judgment, or belief 
transcending sensation. From perceptions there arise 
spontaneously conceptions or general notions which the 
Stoics termed " common ideas " (/coeval evvoiao, or irpo- 
Xrj^ei^). General notions may be produced, by a con- 
sciously directed act of the mind. As to the special 
processes (as distinguished from media or sources) by 
which ideas are gotten, the Stoic theory is as follows : 
" All our thoughts are formed either by direct percep- 
tion or by similarity, or analogy, or transposition, or 
combination, or opposition. By direct perception we 
perceive those things which are objects of sense; by 
similarity those which start from some point present to 
our senses ; as for instance, we form an idea of Socrates 
from his likeness. We draw our conclusions by analogy 
adopting either an increased idea of the thing as of 
Tityus or the Cyclopes ; or a diminished idea as of a 
pigmy. So, too, the idea of the centre of the world 
was one derived by analogy from what we perceived to 
be the case of the smaller spheres. We use transposi- 
tion when we fancy eyes in a man's breast ; combination 
when we take in the idea of a centaur ; opposition when 
we turn our thoughts to death. Some ideas arise from 



202 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

comparison, — for instance, from a comparison of words 
and places." 1 

The Criterion of Truth in Ideas? — According to 
Chrysippus and others the criterion of knowledge is 
perception : we know only what we perceive (by sense) ; 
only those ideas contain certain knowledge for us which 
are ideas of real objects. (General notions contain no 
reference to reality, are merely subjective.) What ideas 
these are, can be known with certainty only by the 
wise man. But real perceptions, or the ideas of real 
objects ((fravTacTLai /cara\r}7rrt/cac), possess greater dis- 
tinctness than others, a certain power to compel belief 
or assent. That other ideas might also possess such 
distinctness and power to compel assent, the Stoics did 
not deny. 

System and Logical Method. — The Stoic theory of 
knowledge and of conceptions included the idea of a 
science as a system of ideas. But to only one branch 
of systematic method did they give but little attention ; 
viz., deduction, in the theory of which they made some 
improvements. They particularly emphasized the syl- 
logism, the doctrine of which they held to be the most 
important part of dialectic, on the ground that it shows 
what is capable of demonstration, aids in forming the 
judgment, and gives scientific character to our knowl- 
edge. On the subject of propositions and argumenta- 
tion, the Stoics laid down numerous distinctions, some 
of which now seem trivial, useless, or irrelevant to 
what is known as formal logic. 3 They laid particular 

1 Diog. Laert., Life of Zeno. (Trans, p. 278.) 
2 Ibid., p. 276. 3 Ibid., pp. 282-289. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 203 

stress upon hypothetical and disjunctive syllogisms. 
It is, however, not quite correct to say 1 that the Stoics 
introduced both the hypothetical and the disjunctive 
syllogism. The former, or a near approach to it, may 
be found explained in Aristotle's Prior Analytics? 

The Categories. — The categories admitted by the 
Stoics are (besides the supreme conception of Being, or, 
rather, according to the Stoics, Something) four in num- 
ber : subject-matter, or substance, to vTrofcei/xevov ; qual- 
ity, to itolov ; condition, to 7rw? e%ov ; relation, to 777909 
ti 7T&)? e^ov. Quality seems to correspond, in general, to 
Aristotle's "form." Real quality is of two kinds : com- 
mon, or general (kolvcos), and peculiar, or special (l&iws). 
Examples of to 7r(W9 e-^ov are size, motion, color, etc. 
Right and left, sonship and fatherhood, are examples of to 
737309 ti 7rw? eyov. The four categories have a natural in- 
terrelation. Substance cannot exist apart from quality, 
i.e., real substance is definite. Condition presupposes 
quality, and relation condition. Zeller has pointed out 
three regards in which this theory of categories differs 
from Aristotle's : 3 the number of the categories, 4 their 
relation to each other, and their relation to a higher con- 
ception. To these may be added a fourth : the catego- 
ries of the Stoics are not so purely logical, or conceptual, 
as the Aristotelian categories. The Stoic "substance" 
is, as we shall immediately see, matter either universal 
or particular ; quality is purely material in origin, being 
due to a tension caused by air currents. 

1 As Zeller (and Benn after him) says. 

2 See above, p. 125. 

3 See Zeller 1 s Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, p. 95. 

4 Aristotle's ''action" and "passion" are preserved in the Stoic " ac- 
tive" and "passive" principles of the world, i.e., "matter" and "force." 



204 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Physics, or the Theory of Nature} — The physics of the 
Stoics is also their metaphysics, for, though they could 
not avoid palpable inconsistencies with fact in so doing, 
they held material being to be the whole of being. 
This idea is in harmony with their sensational theory 
of knowledge, apparently a misconception of the Aris- 
totelian, and, of course, with their ethical doctrine that 
reality is that which acts on us or is acted on by us. 
God, the Soul, the Good, virtue, vice, emotion, judg- 
ments are to the Stoics material, though time, space, 
place, expression are admitted to be immaterial. Sub- 
stance, rb viroKelfievov, is either universal matter or the 
matter of individual objects. Quality, rb ttolov, is due 
to air currents circulating through bodies. The world has 
a double nature ; matter is capable of acting as well as 
being acted on ; in other words, the world is a duality 
of matter and force. Matter, the passive principle, is 
without any distinctive quality. The active principle, 
inherent in the passive, matter, is reason, or God, con- 
ceived, however, as material. By whatever name called, 
— mind, soul, reason, logos 2 (X0709), fate, law, nature, 
providence, — God is the all-pervading fire, the soul and 
seminal principle of the world, and is distinct from it 
only in abstraction : the distinction between them is a 
distinction without a difference. The world is, there- 
fore, a living thing, pervaded by soul, — in different 
degrees in different parts. It is one, finite, and spheri- 
cal. Exterior to it is a boundless (incorporeal) vacuum, 
there being no vacuum in the world. The world was 
produced by God out of his own substance, and will be 

1 Diog. Laert., Life of Zeno, pp. 307, 318. 

2 An idea common in the latest period of Greek philosophy. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 205 

absorbed again into that. Immediately afterwards a 
new world will be created, and so on in infinitum. In 
the creation of the world were generated, first, the four 
elements, fire, air, water, and earth, which are, all, " es- 
sence without any distinctive quality." " The fire is 
highest, and that is called aether ; in which first of all 
the sphere was generated in which the fixed stars are 
set, then that in which the planets revolve ; after that 
the air, then the water ; and the sediment, as it were, of 
all is the earth, which is placed in the centre of the 
rest." 1 The water has a spherical form and the same 
centre as the earth ; so, too, has the air surrounding it. 
Water and earth constitute the body of nature, fire and 
air its soul. The successive worlds that are by the 
Deity put forth from, and taken back into, his own 
substance are in all respects similar. Throughout all 
changes law abides. The world is, by virtue of the 
unity of matter and force, an organic whole. There is 
perfect adaptation of means to ends. Plants have their 
end in animals, animals in man, the whole, as a whole, 
in gods and men. Imperfection and evil are only appar- 
ent, attach not to the whole (which is organically per- 
fect), but to the details of the constitution of things. 
The soul of man is material. "Whatever influences 
the body and is influenced by it in turn, whatever is 
united with the body and again separated from it, must 
be corporeal. How can the soul be other than cor- 
poreal ? Whatever has extension in three dimensions 
is corporeal, and this is the case with the soul, since 
it extends in three dimensions over the whole body. 
Moreover, thought and motion are due to animal life. 
Animal life is matured and kept in health by the breath 

1 Diog. Laert, Life of Zeno, p. 309. 



206 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

of life. Experience also proves that mental qualities 
are propagated by generation, and that they must be 
consequently connected with a corporeal substratum." * 
The central seat of the soul is the breast. The parts 
of the soul are the five senses, the generative power, the 
power of speech, and the intellect. The last-named is 
the principal part, and is the seat of personal identity. 
The emotions, or " passions," — classified as grief, de- 
sire, fear, and pleasure — were termed by the Stoics 
" perturbations," and were declared to be merely judg- 
ments. Error in thought is a consequence of these 
perturbations. Being a part of the universal soul, the 
individual human soul is not free in will, though it is 
subject to moral responsibility. The soul, though cor- 
poreal, lives after death, but will at the end of the world 
(cycle) cease to be as an individual, being dissolved in 
the universal soul whence it sprung. 

Ethics: its Parts? — Ethical speculation was exten- 
sively practised by the Stoics. According to Diogenes, 
— Chrysippus and others, but not Zeno nor Cleanthes, 
divided ethics into " the topic of inclination [or natural 
tendency], the topic of good and bad, the topic of the 
passions, the topic of virtue, the topic of the chief good, 
and of primary estimation, and of actions : the topic of 
what things are becoming, and of exhortation and dis- 
suasion." We shall treat here of the Chief Good, the 
Nature of Virtue, the Classes of Virtue, the Classes of 
Goods, the Wise Man, and the Stoic attitude towards 
the Popular Religion. 

The Chief Good: Life according to Nature. — Nature 

1 Zellcr*s Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics. 

2 Diog. Laert., Life of Zeno, pp. 290-307. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 207 

working as an artist produces in each thing a certain 
inclination, or tendency, to preserve a certain form of 
existence. "The first and dearest object" of every 
animal (man included) is the preservation of its own 
existence and its consciousness of its own existence. 
This is its life according to nature ; this is virtue and 
the chief good, — for virtue and the chief good can be 
only life according to nature. But what, precisely, is life 
according to nature ? On this point there was a differ- 
ence of opinion among the Stoics. By "nature" must 
we understand our human or our universal nature, or 
both ? Zeno, it appears, had adopted, or, at least, em- 
phasized, merely the first of these three conceptions of 
nature ; but in the course of the development of Sto- 
icism as a theory the second and then the last became 
predominant, the last being held by Chrysippus. "Chry- 
sippus," says Diogenes, 1 "understands that the nature 
in a manner corresponding to which we ought to live is 
both the common nature, and also human nature in par- 
ticular, but Cleanthes will not admit of any other than the 
common one alone as that to which people ought to live 
in a manner according ; and repudiates all mention of 
a particular nature." In the "life according to nature" 
is included also, we shall find, life in and according to 
a social order, for nature is but a synonym for reason, 
and society is but a natural off-spring of reason, the 
common nature of mankind. 

Nature of Virtue. — Now a life according to nature is 
a life determined by that which takes cognizance of 
reason in the world, viz., real knowledge. Virtue, in 

1 Diog. Laert., Life of Zeno, p. 291. This is a point in which Cleanthes 
( did get beyond Zeno, who apparently stood nearer to the Cynics. 



208 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

other words, is knowledge. With the Stoics the dis- 
tinction made by Aristotle, and even by Plato, between 
virtues based on knowledge, on the one hand, and on 
the other, natural and acquired virtues, or virtues based 
on habit "joined with reason," does not hold. Strictly 
speaking, the emotions have nothing to do with virtue : 
they are, if any thing, mere hindrances to it, " perturba- 
tions," from which the wise or virtuous man is entirely 
free. Virtue is, rather, a condition of apathy {airddeia). 
But though virtue is in its origin intellectual, it is in 
actuality something more than that : it is action, — 
action based on knowledge. The Stoic conception of vir- 
tue differs considerably, it thus appears, from the Socratic 
conception and the conception held by Plato and Aristotle. 
The Stoics differ from Socrates, also, in holding that 
wrong-doing must be classed among things voluntary. 
They assert that vice is the result not of ignorance 
merely but of emotional perturbation, and that man has 
and must exercise control over the emotions, — gener- 
ally by suppressing them. There are no degrees in 
virtue 1 (but then, at the same time, a distinction is 
made by the Stoics between an action that is merely 
fitting, KaOrjKov, and one that results from a virtuous 
disposition, Karopdco/na) ; and there is no mean between 
virtue and vice, a "stick must be either straight or 
crooked." 2 According to Cleanthes (with whom, 
however, Chrysippus disagrees at this point) virtue can- 
not be lost, " on account of the firm perceptions which 
it plants in men." 3 

Classes of Virtue .^ — Regarding the classification of 

1 Ueberweg's Hist, of Phil., Vol. I. p. 200. 

a Diog. Laert., Life of Zeno, p. 305. 

3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., pp. 292, 293. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 209 

the virtues, there was a difference of opinion among the 
Stoics. One divided virtues into speculative and prac- 
tical ; another into logical, natural, and ethical. Some 
said there were four virtues ; others, and among them 
Cleanthes and Chrysippus, more than four ; one, Allo- 
phanes, asserted that there was but one virtue, viz., 
prudence. Aristo thought that what was considered a 
variety of virtues was more properly a variety of objects 
with which virtue, in itself one, was concerned. Chry- 
sippus held that there were distinct conditions of soul 
constituting distinct virtues. Those, or at least some 
of those, who held that there is a plurality of virtues, 
held also that some of the virtues are "primitive" and 
some " derived " ; that the " primitive " virtues are 
"prudence, manly courage, justice, and temperance," 
and that, "subordinate to these as a kind of species 
contained in them are magnanimity, continence, endur- 
ance, presence of mind, wisdom in council." 1 That the 
"virtues reciprocally follow one another and that he 
who has one has all" 2 was admitted even by Chrysippus. 
Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and other Stoics agreed in think- 
ing that virtue could be taught. 3 

Classes of Goods : the " Summum Bonum." — Virtue, 
we have seen, was with the Stoics the chief good, or 
summum bonum. The Stoics did not admit that, as 
Aristotle had held, there was any thing to be added 
to virtue to constitute happiness, or the highest good ; 
nor, as they admitted no degrees in virtue, did they 
admit degrees in goods : " All goods are equal . . . every 
good is to be desired in the highest degree . . . and 

1 Diog. Laert., Life of Zeno. 2 Ibid., p. 304. 

3 Ibid., p. 292. 



210 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

admits of no relaxation and of no extension." x Some 
things, however, are good in themselves ("final goods "), 
and others are good because they lead to final goods 
("efficient goods"), others still are both efficient and 
final. The Stoics acknowledged another distinction 
which may, perhaps, be regarded as a softening (re- 
quired by practical necessity) of their rigid rule con- 
cerning goods. All things are good, bad, or indifferent. 
Things positively bad are the vices, the diametrical 
opposites of the virtues : folly, intemperance, cowardice, 
injustice. Things indifferent are things that are 
"neither beneficial nor injurious, such as life, health, 
pleasure, beauty, strength, riches, good reputation, 
nobility of birth, and their contraries, death, disease, 
labor, disgrace, weakness, poverty, and bad reputation, 
baseness of birth, and the like." 2 Of things indifferent 
some, it is evident, are objects of preference (Trporjy/jLeva), 
because they " concur in producing a well-regulated 
life," and others are things to be avoided or rejected 
(diro7rpoi]y/jb6va), because they are of the opposite char- 
acter. "Every good is expedient, and necessary, and 
profitable, and useful, and serviceable, and beautiful, 
and advantageous, and eligible, and just : expedient 
inasmuch as it brings things which by their happening 
do us good ; necessary inasmuch as it assists us in what 
we have need to be assisted ; profitable inasmuch as it 
repays all the care that is expended on it, and makes 
a return with interest to our great advantage ; useful 
inasmuch as it supplies us with what is of utility ; 
serviceable because it does us service which is much 

1 Diog. Laert., Life of Zeno, p. 292. 2 Ibid., p. 296. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 211 

praised ; beautiful because it is accurate in proportion 
to the need we have of it and to the service it does ; 
advantageous inasmuch as it is of such a character as 
to confer advantage on us ; eligible because it is such 
that we may rationally choose it; and just because it 
is in accordance with law, and is an efficient cause of 
union." 1 

The " Wise Man." — Now he who is the personal em- 
bodiment of virtue — since all virtue is the same, we need 
not say here perfect virtue — and who alone possesses 
absolute goods, and is worthy to have the* advantage of 
all those " indifferent " things which are objects of " pref- 
erence " is the wise man. The wise man is he who, 
being perfect in his knowledge of the laws of the uni- 
verse, above all passion, and completely governed by 
reason, is perfectly self-contained and self-satisfied, — a 
fit companion for the gods, yes, even for Zeus himself. 
But the idea of the perfectly virtuous and self-sufficient 
individual man was in part necessarily abandoned by 
the Stoics. For, in the first place, they were obliged to 
admit that in reality there had been, and was, no such 
man ; even the most exemplary men, Socrates, Diogenes, 
Antisthenes, had made great improvement in virtue ; 
and, in the second place, though by their affinity, his- 
torical and logical, with the Cynics they were inclined 
to regard the individual as self-sufficient, they were 
obliged to admit that by the very fact of his possessing 
reason the wise man is bound to his fellow-man, that he 
must and will have friends, in whom he may see the 
reflection of himself. They asserted, indeed, that the 

1 Diog. Laert, Life of Zeno, p. 295. 



212 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

wise man was the only person worthy to have friends. 
Again, the wise man will marry and beget children 
(Zeno held that there should be "community" of wives 
and children among wise men) ; he will also, according 
to Chrysippus, take active part in affairs of state, for 
he will desire to restrain vice and excite men to virtue. 1 
And yet to realize as fully as possible the conception 
of individual independence, the Stoics made the wise 
man a citizen of the world, not binding him too closely 
by ties of family, friendship, or nationality. This idea 
hit the mean between the crudeness of Cynicism, pure 
and simple, and the practice of ordinary social life in a 
nation or a state. (The best political constitution is a 
mixed one, "combined democracy and kingly power 
and aristocracy.") Towards the universe, as a whole, 
and the power therein, the attitude of the wise man is 
that of resignation and obedience. In this attitude he 
is but acting out his own true nature. " The virtuous 
man . . . will honor God by resigning his will to the 
divine will ; the divine will he will think better than his 
own will ; he will remember that in all circumstances 
we must follow destiny, but that it is the wise man's 
prerogative to follow it of his own accord ; that there is 
only one way to happiness and independence, — that of 
willing nothing except what is in the nature of things 
and will realize itself of our will." 2 But the Stoics af- 
firmed, on the other hand, that " a wise man will ration- 
ally take himself out of life, either for the sake of his 
country or of his friends, or if he be in bitter pain, or 
under the affliction of mutilation, or incurable disease." 3 

1 Diog. Laert., Life of Zeno, p. 303. 

2 Zeller^s S'oics, Epicureans, and Sceptics. 
8 Diog. Laert., Life of Zeno, p. 306. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 21 3 

The Stoics and the Popular Religion. — The Stoics 
did not approve of the ordinary forms and instrumental- 
ities of religion. To them the world was full of the 
Deity. Their philosophy was thus a religious, or at 
least a theological, philosophy. They gave the names 
of gods to "fruits, wine, and other gifts '' of the gods, 
did not forbid the worship of ancient heroes, and on the 
hypothesis that God was everywhere accessible, prac- 
tised the " art of divination " and prophecy, though 
there was not perfect unanimity among them in regard 
to this last point. They had a peculiar over-fondness 
for rationalizing the ancient myths, or giving them plain 
and consistent meanings. 1 To them there was reason 
in everything. 

Historical Sources of Stoicism. — The chief historical 
sources of Stoicism have already been in part indicated. 
In logic and dialectics the Stoics were followers of Aris- 
totle and the Cynics. Their neglect of induction is 
quite in keeping with their subjective individualistic 
tendencies generally. In physics they were followers 
of Heraclitus, Socrates, and Aristotle ; their fire, or 
logos, or world-spirit being Heraclitic, their teleology 
being Socratic (not Aristotelian), their 'active' and 
' passive ' principles, ' matter ' and ' force ' being quasi- 
Aristotelian. In ethics they followed Socrates, the 
Cynics, and the philosophers of the Old Academy, their 
leading doctrine, ' Follow nature,' having been prac- 
ticed by the Cynics and enunciated by certain philoso- 
phers of the Academy (Xenocrates, Speusippus, and 
Polemo). On the whole, the Stoics cannot be credited 

1 See Zeller^s Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics. 



214 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

with a large degree of intellectual originality ; they 
were, rather, apostles of moral force, a certain (limited) 
ethical individuality. 

Result. — It remains to examine (briefly) the connec- 
tion, coherency, and validity of the leading Stoic con- 
ceptions. A distinct breach in the Stoic system is 
involved in the fact that whereas reason is held to be 
universal and knowable, and sense is held to be the 
source and criterion of knowledge, it is denied that 
there is a rational universal element in. sense. Another 
incoherency, closely akin to this, is that while sense is 
held to be the only source of knowledge, the processes 
of thought are treated as something essential. An 
obvious inconsistency in the Stoic physics is the position 
that only material things are real and the admission that 
certain immaterial things, e.g., time, space, expression, 
are real. Of a similar character is the idea that the 
soul is corporeal. Here the Stoics are about on a level 
with the Hylozoists. The conception of organic unity 
is given here too simple a form. The unity of body 
and soul cannot be that of simple identity or of mate- 
rialistic organicity (if we may be allowed such a word) ; 
it is a unity in which difference is contained, an ideal, 
or speculative, unity. There is, too, an unexplained 
paradox, to say the least, in the Stoic idea that, though 
the individual is merely a part of universal reason and 
is subject to necessity, he is morally responsible. In 
the cardinal ethical doctrine of the Stoics, Live accord- 
ing to nature, there is, as the development of thought 
in the history of the school proves, a certain instability 
and inconsistency. Is nature the individual human 
nature, the universal nature, or a union of the two ? 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 21 5 

The later Stoics, as we have seen, took the last-men- 
tioned view of the case, thus solving the conception. 
The mere individual in himself is practically nothing 
and becomes nothing if he be absorbed in the bare uni- 
versal. Again, virtue is declared to be the only good, 
and yet there are admitted to be, besides things that 
are positively bad, a class of things that are " indiffer- 
ent," some of which are "objects of preference," and 
useful and pleasant to the wise man ; and an act fit- 
tingly done is to be distinguished from one done with 
right intention. Further, the sphere of the wise man 
is said to be pure reason, and yet he is subject to emo- 
tion, at least to the extent of having to repress and sup- 
press it. Moreover the wise man is self-sufficient, but 
he needs friends and should take an active part in public 
affairs, and is dependent upon and benefited by the 
possession of external goods. Furthermore, all virtuous 
men are absolutely virtuous, all bad men are absolutely 
bad ; but Socrates, Antisthenes, and Diogenes, who are 
not perfect, are not bad. Finally, the wise man is a fit 
companion for Zeus, and yet his attitude towards the 
universal order should be that of resignation and sub- 
mission. In general, the Stoic system is full of paradox : 
instead of harmonizing or reconciling the natural antith- 
esis of sense and reason, the individual and universal, 
it brought the members of the antithesis into sharper 
opposition, and this, too, in spite of the obvious unity 
aimed at by the conception of the world as an organic 
whole and of the individual as being universally self- 
sufficient. 1 

1 See below, p. 246. 



2l6 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

§ 18. 

Epicurus and his School. — Epicurus, the founder of 
the Epicurean School, was born in Samos, in the year 
342 or 341 B.C. Stimulated to inquiry (according to 
one account) by the reading of Hesiod, and failing to 
get satisfactory answers to his inquiries (concerning 
chaos) from his instructors, he began, at the age of 
fourteen, the study of philosophy. At the age of 
eighteen he went to Athens, and remained there as a 
student of philosophy until, at the age of thirty, he 
began teaching it, first at Mytelene, then at Lampsacus, 
and finally (about 306 b.c.) at Athens, where he taught for 
thirty-six years. His knowledge of and regard for 
other philosophers was slight. He had received some 
instruction in the doctrines of Plato, and thought him 
" golden," and in those of Democritus, whom he de- 
risively called Leocritus (humbug?), but whose physical 
theories he borrowed freely ; had perhaps been a pupil 
of Xenocrates and Nausiphanes, a Democritean, who 
had been a pupil of Pyrrho, the Sceptic ; he ridiculed 
Aristotle as a debauchee, glutton, and vendor of drugs ; 
called Protagoras a "porter," Heraclitus a " disturber," 
the Cynics the " enemies " of Greece ; declared that 
the Dialecticians (the Stoics?) were ''eaten up with 
envy." He is said to have thought highly of Anax- 
agoras, though it is hard to see why ; there are no traces 
of any influence of Anaxagoras upon his thinking. 
The same may be said with regard to his admiration of 
Plato. His opinion of other philosophers is indicative 
of his attitude towards things in general, which is nega- 
tive. His criticism of other philosophers, it would 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 217 

appear, and doubtless, also, the character of his doc- 
trines, excited towards him hostile feeling and comment, 
and there were those who spoke of him as an extreme 
voluptuary ; but Diogenes Laertius declares him to 
have been a man of excessive modesty (a modesty that 
caused him to " avoid affairs of state "), of filial grati- 
tude, of philanthropy and piety ; to have been warmly 
regarded by very numerous friends, and honored by 
his country with brazen statues. He died in 270 B.C., 
made cheerful in spirits, in the midst of great physical 
suffering, by the " recollection " of "his philosophical 
contemplations." He bequeathed the garden in which 
he had met his disciples in philosophical converse to 
the surviving members of his school and to all coming 
after them who should choose to "abide and dwell in 
it " and maintain his doctrines. Between him and the 
members of the school there was a very strong personal 
tie, and his personality, as well as his dogmas, was 
deeply impressed upon their minds. His dogmas em- 
bodied in brief statements, and, regarded as common 
intellectual possessions (fcvptcu h6%cu), were committed 
to memory by his disciples and were handed down 
traditionally. Diogenes Laertius 1 speaks of the "per- 
petual succession of his school, which, when every 
other school decayed, continued without any falling off, 
and produced countless numbers of philosophers, suc- 
ceeding one another without any interruption." In his 
productivity as a writer he almost rivalled Chrysippus. 
He boasted of the originality of his writings, of the 

1 See Lives of the Philosophe?-s (Bohn's Class. Lib.) ; Life of Epicurus, 
pp. 424-479. 



21 8 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

perspicuity of their style and freedom from rhetorical 
constraints and ornaments. But he was guilty of a 
neglect of true rhetorical method which has justly 
brought down upon his style the condemnation of 
critics, ancient and modern. Of eminent Epicureans 
there should be mentioned the following: Hermarchus 
of Mytelene, president of the school after the death of 
Epicurus ; Metrodorus and Polycenus of Lampsacus ; 
Apollo dorus ; Zeno of Sidon ; Lticretius, the Latin poet, 
who has followed Epicurus closely in essential points 
in his poem De Rerum Natura. Among the immediate 
personal disciples of Epicurus were several women, 1 a 
fact that gave occasion to rival schools for disagreeable 
gossip about the Epicurean school. 

The Parts of Philosophy. — Epicurus divides philoso- 
phy into three parts : Canonics, Physics, and Ethics. 
Canonics is the science of the criteria of truth. It con- 
tains nothing of dialectic, for Epicurus declared that the 
" correspondence of words with things was sufficient for 
the philosopher." Epicurus regarded it as scarcely more 
than a mere introduction to physics, which in turn was 
held subsidiary to ethics, for Epicureanism, like Stoicism, 
Cynicism, and indeed most of the other post-Socratic 
systems in ancient philosophy, was primarily (and one- 
sidedly) ethical in its aim. There seems, in fact, to have 
been a strong tendency to make, or, rather, a habit of 
making, two parts of philosophy, Physics including 
Canonics) and Ethics. 2 It will be seen in detail, as we 
proceed, how the physics, very largely, and the canon- 

1 The Leontion of Landor's Imaginary Conversation, Epicurus, Leon- 
Hon, and Ternissa, bears the name of one of these. 

2 Diog. Laert., Life of Epicurus, p. 434. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 2IO, 

ics less so, are determined by the leading ethical doctrines 
of Epicurus, viz., that the end of human existence is 
pleasure. It cannot be said, however, that there is a 
deduction of the parts of his system from the notion of 
pleasure, and to attempt such a deduction here would 
convey a wrong idea of the tone and mode of his 
thinking. 

Canonics : Criteria of Truth in Ideas} — The criteria of 
truth in ideas are, according to Epicurus, the " senses," 
preconceptions, or anticipations (irpoX^e^), or "recol- 
lection of an external object often perceived anteriorly," 
and the "passions." "But," says Diogenes, "the Epicu- 
reans, in general, add also the perceptive impressions of 
the intellect." Of these criteria the senses are primary : 
" Every notion proceeds from the senses, either directly 
or in consequence of some analogy or proportion, or com- 
bination." The senses are entirely pure of all influence 
of memory, reason, or any other mental operation: 
they merely receive impressions from external causes, 
adding nothing, subtracting nothing. Each sense and 
sensation, furthermore, is independent of every other. 
One sensation cannot be a criterion for another resem- 
bling it or differing from if. The senses are, therefore, 
their own guarantee : reason cannot pronounce upon 
them ; rather are the senses the foundation of reason. 
An error in perception must, therefore, not be attributed 
to the senses, but to judgment, or inference, (wrongly 
added preconceptions or " perceptive impressions of the 
intellect ") attending sensation. 2 An example of a precon- 
ception or anticipation is the idea that arises in the 
mind immediately upon pronouncing the word "man" 

1 Diog. Laert., Life of Epicurus, pp. 435, 436. 2 Ibid., p. 435. 



220 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

in the sentence, " Man is such and such a nature." The 
idea is one we "owe to the preceding operation of the 
senses/' and it is to be depended upon as a correct one. 
Such an idea is a necessary condition to every percep- 
tion or judgment. (That is, " representation " is a con- 
dition of "presentation" and judgment.) "To be able 
to affirm that what we see at a distance is a horse or an 
ox, we must have some anticipation in our minds which 
makes us acquainted with the form of a horse or an ox. 
We could not give names to things if we had not a pre- 
liminary notion of what things were." The certainty of 
our judgment depends upon our properly applying our 
anticipations. "Error and false judgment always 
depend upon the supposition that a preconceived 
idea will be confirmed or at all events will not be 
overturned by evidence." The passions are pleasure 
and pain, the former being natural, and the other for- 
eign, to human nature. They are the criteria of ethical 
judgment; i.e., (according to Epicurus), judgment em- 
ployed in determining what things should be chosen and 
what avoided. "Opinion" (So^a) and "supposition" 
(yTroXrjtyis) are partly true and partly false : true when 
supported, not contradicted, by evidence ; false if con- 
tradicted by any evidence. It is often necessary to 
suspend the judgment. There is a certain degree of 
truth and objectivity in dreams. 

Canonics: Method in the Study of Nature} — Now as 
to method in the study of nature, we must proceed 
" from the known to the unknown." First, there must 
be an exact notion for each term, or there will result 
mere "verbal demonstration in infinitum." Leading 

1 Diog. Laert., Life of Epicurus, pp. 437, 438, 456, 459, etc. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 22 7 

terms must represent indemonstrable notions ; i.e., no- 
tions true according to some one or more of the criteria. 
We must be able to bring into our investigation, when 
necessary, the " impressions we receive in the presence 
of objects." We may pass to the unknown by analogy 
and by induction, but it is necessary to be on our 
guard against false analogies and against accepting un- 
verified induction as equal in value to immediate cer- 
tainty. Proper analogies are those founded on appear- 
ances, and are to be held superior to hypotheses. Now 
appearances may be susceptible of different "explana- 
tions," and it is a rule, made and insisted on by Epicu- 
rus, that we must guard against supposing that there is 
only one way of explaining phenomena. Phenomena 
may have many different causes and require as many 
different explanations. The Epicureans gave little atten- 
tion to deductive logic as such. 

Physics: Aim and General Character} — Besides the 
principles of method laid down in the canonic, physical 
speculation must be conditioned by the idea that man's 
chief end is happiness, and that, therefore, he requires 
to know only so much as will preclude all ground for 
disquietude of soul, — the fear of death, of daemons, of 
mysterious and unforeseen events. 

First Principle. — The fundamental conception (mate- 
rial principle) of physics is, according to Epicurus, that 
nothing can come of nothing : the All has always been, 
and always will be, such as it now is, since there is noth- 
ing into which it can change, nor is there anything 
which, entering it, can cause it to change. The uni- 

1 Diog. Laert, Life of Epicurus, pp. 438-466. 



222 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

verse is a material universe. Our senses bear testimony 
to the existence of bodies ; and reasoning upon the tes- 
timony of the senses (for the senses, we have seen, are 
the foundation of reason) we infer the existence of 
space, for if there were not " that which we call vacuum, 
or space, or intangible nature, there would be nothing 
in which the bodies could be contained or across which 
they could move, as they really do move." We cannot, 
in other words, perceive, or conceive by the aid of infer- 
ence or analogy, any universal quality or thing that is 
not body, or quality of body, or vacuum. 

Atoms. — Bodies perceptible to the senses are compos- 
ite and dissoluble. But there must be something " solid 
and indestructible " that remains after their dissolution ; 
because if we suppose bodies to be divisible in infinitum, 
we are brought to the absurdity of " reducing everything 
to nothing," and consequently of saying that something 
can come of nothing. Composite bodies, then, have as 
their element the atom. The atom, though not cogniz- 
able by the senses, must have magnitude, it being solid 
and destructible, and a part of that which has magni- 
tude. But since the process of division of bodies may 
conceivably be carried to an indefinite extent, we must 
assign to the atom the smallest possible dimensions. 
And in order to account for sensations and differences 
of quality in bodies we must suppose that atoms differ 
in magnitude. Again, it is impossible to account for 
the vast variety of form in bodies without supposing a 
great, an incalculable, variety in form among atoms. In 
any particular finite body the number of atoms is finite : 
in the entire universe the number is infinite, for the 
universe, not being limited by anything, is infinite, and 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 223 

body and vacuum are consequently infinite, because " if 
the vacuum were infinite, the number of bodies being 
finite, the bodies would not be able to rest in any place : 
they would be transported about, scattered across the 
infinite vacuum for want of any power to steady them- 
selves, or to keep one another in their places by mutual 
repulsion : if, on the other hand, the vacuum were finite, 
the bodies being infinite, then the bodies clearly could 
never be contained in the vacuum." Furthermore, atoms 
have weight. Finally, the motion and the dissolution of 
sensible bodies (which can be caused only by a knock- 
ing together of the atoms) presuppose motion of the 
atoms. The atoms, in fact, must have been continually 
moving and with an equal rapidity from all eternity, 
since the vacuum offers no more resistance to the light- 
est than it does to the heaviest. Because of the differ- 
ent weight of the atoms, some of them move downward, 
some are pressed upward. Because of the " reciprocal 
percussion of the atoms, some of them have a horizontal 
movement to and fro." An atom has not any movement 
perceptible to the senses. The motion of the atoms is 
not due, as Democritus held, merely to natural neces- 
sity, i.e., to their weight, but to a certain power of self- 
movement, the ability, as it were, to "swerve a little" 
from a straight, fixed, and otherwise necessary, line of 
movement. Among the arguments employed by Lucre- 
tius (who may be regarded as an authority for the Epi- 
curean physical theories) is the following : " If all mo- 
tion is ever linked together, and a new motion ever 
springs from another in a fixed order, and first begin- 
nings do not, by swerving, make some commencement 
of motion to break through the decrees of fate that 



224 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

cause follow not cause from everlasting, — whence have 
all living creatures here on earth, whence, I ask, has 
been wrested from the fates the power by which we go 
forward whither the will leads each, by which we like- 
wise change the direction of our motions, neither at a 
fixed time nor fixed place, but when and where the mind 
itself has prompted? For, beyond a doubt, in these 
things his own will makes for each a beginning, and 
from this beginning notions are willed through the 
limbs." 1 There is, however, no other cause of motion 
in the atoms than that which is contained in themselves. 
The distances of the atoms from one another vary, some 
being great, others small. 

Properties of Bodies. — The properties of bodies, such 
as forms, colors, magnitude, weight, are not particular 
substances (as the Stoics asserted), nor can it be said 
that they have no reality at all. They cannot be con- 
ceived as independent of the bodies, and must be con- 
ceived when we form an idea of bodies. Of these there 
are two classes : attributes, which constitute by their 
union the " eternal substance and essence of the entire 
body " ; and accidents, which are not entirely inherent 
in bodies, but which, nevertheless, cannot be ranged 
among the incorporeal and invisible things. " These 
last, as they are not necessarily inherent in the idea of 
a body," can be conceived only in the moment in which 
they affect the senses. (Here we have, or appear to 
have, the modern psychological distinction between pri- 
mary and secondary qualities of bodies. Democritus 
had made the same, or a similar, distinction.) 

1 Lucretius, De Rerum Natura (Munro's Trans.), p. 34. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 225 

The Visible Universe. — Of the worlds in distant space 
we must reason very much as we do regarding bodies 
that we " observe under our own eyes." Worlds and 
all other objects that may be compared to those objects 
" under our own eyes " have each been separated from 
the infinite by a movement peculiar to itself, 1 and they 
will be destroyed, some more, others less, rapidly. Epi- 
curus did not believe that any worlds were formed by 
violent motions and crashings of other worlds, but by a 
flowing together of atoms to form a nucleus, and a gath- 
ering of " germs " about the nucleus thus formed. The 
number of worlds is infinite ; but it is not reasonable to 
suppose that the worlds are identical in form, or that 
there are worlds of every possible form. There is no 
increase or decrease of body in the universe as a whole. 
The earth is suspended in the air. Lucretius explains 
why the earth does not drop or sink from its place in 
the centre of the world, as follows : " In order that the 
earth may rest in the middle of the world, it is proper 
that its weight should be lessened, and that it should 
have another nature underneath it, conjoined from the 
beginning of its existence and formed into one being 
with the airy portions of the world in which it is em- 
bodied and lives." The sun and the moon are in size 
what they appear to the senses to be. They are not 
reabsorbed into the whole. We must " beware " of sup- 
posing that the heavenly phenomena — "the motions 
and courses of the stars, the eclipse, their rising, set- 
ting, etc." — are "produced by any particular being 
which has regulated or whose business it is to regulate, 

1 See Zeller. 



226 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

for the future, the order of the world, a being immortal 
and perfectly happy : for the cares and anxieties, the 
benevolence and the anger, far from being compatible 
with felicity are, on the contrary, the consequence of 
weakness, of fear, and the want which a thing has of 
something else." The truth is that these phenomena 
are governed by a "kind of necessity"; they have an 
order that was given them at the first organization of 
the universe. And yet we must not try to explain these 
phenomena in accordance with any idea of uniformity 
of cause : of supposing that there is but " one single 
mode of production " and of rejecting "all other expla- 
nations which are founded on probability." The eclipses 
of the sun and moon, for example, may be due to the 
fact that these bodies extinguish themselves, or to the 
fact that other bodies interpose between them and us; 
lightning may be the effect of a " shock and collision of 
the clouds," of the lighting up of the clouds by the winds, 
of the mutual pressure of the clouds, or of the pressure 
of the winds against them, or of various conditions. 
Susceptible of explanation upon the principle of a "plu- 
rality of causes " (to employ a modern phrase for a very 
old idea in the history of philosophy) are, likewise, the 
difference in the length of days and nights, clouds, 
thunder, hurricanes, earthquakes, winds, hail, snow, dew, 
comets, falling stars, etc. Regularity in celestial phe- 
nomena should not be made any more of than the little 
coincidences daily occurring immediately about us, a 
fact, the full appreciation of which would bring the per- 
fect quietude and confidence of soul that characterize 
the wise man. 

The Gods. — Nature, we have just seen, is, to the 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 22/ 

Epicureans, in no sense controlled by a divine power or 
by divine powers. The Epicureans, nevertheless, be- 
lieved in the existence of gods and treated of them in 
that branch of their philosophy called physics. Of the 
gods, philosophers — but not the ol 7to\\ol, whose ideas 
of the gods are mere " opinion " and are impious — have 
distinct knowledge through anticipations, irpoXrj'^reis. 
The gods are infinite in number and dwell in the vacant 
spaces between the worlds, in immortality and perfect 
felicity, without concern for the universe about them. 
Prayer and divination are, consequently, discarded by 
the Epicureans as the offspring of ignorance and fear. 
Epicurus says, however, that it is better to follow the 
fables about the gods than to be a slave to the ' fate ' of 
the natural philosophers [Stoics], better to believe that 
the gods are to be moved by gifts and honors than to 
believe in an inexorable necessity. 

The Human Soul} — The human soul is a " bodily sub- 
stance composed of slight particles diffused all over the 
members of the body, presenting a great analogy to a 
sort of spirit": it is composed of "atoms of the most 
perfect lightness and roundness," "wholly different 
from those of fire" (Democritus had said that the soul 
was composed of fiery atoms). The soul cannot be in- 
corporeal, for it would then be, like the vacuum, incap- 
able of ' doing' or ' suffering ' anything," and merely a 
"condition and place of movement." In the soul is the 
seat of sensation, though doubtless sensation depends 
in part upon the body. There are " reciprocal bonds of 
sympathy uniting soul and body by virtue of which the 
soul takes cognizance of the changes that take place in 

1 Diog. Laert, Life of Zeno, pp. 441-443, 447, 448, etc. 



228 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the body which is its envelopment, and then reflects 
these into the body as sensible affections." "But there 
are certain affections of the soul of which the body is not 
capable." The irrational part of the soul, only, is dif- 
fused over the whole body, the rational part, as the emo- 
tions of joy and fear prove, having its seat in the chest. 
On the death and dissolution of the body the soul leaves 
it and dissolves and no longer has power of sensation or 
motion. Sensation is explained by Epicurus as being 
produced by the impact upon the organs of sense of 
infinitely small, thin, film-like emanations from bodies, 
which having the same arrangement and motion as the 
atoms in the bodies glide with infinite rapidity through 
vacant space, escaping all obstacles. These are termed 
images. " One must admit that something passes from 
external objects to us in order to produce sight and the 
knowledge of forms ; for it is difficult to conceive that 
external objects can affect us through the medium of 
the air which is between us and them or by means of 
rays, whatever emissions proceed from us to them, so as 
to give us an impression of their form and color. This 
phenomenon, on the contrary, is perfectly explained, if 
we admit that certain images of the same color, of the 
same shape, and of a proportionate magnitude pass 
from the objects to us, and so arrive at being seen and 
comprehended. These images are animated by an ex- 
ceeding rapidity, and, as, on the other side, the solid 
forming a compact mass, and comprising a vast quantity 
of atoms, emits always the same quantity of particles, 
the vision is continued, and produces in us one single 
perception which always preserves the same relation to 
the object. Every conception, every sensible perception 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 229 

which has to do with the form or other attributes of 
these images is only the same form of the solid body 
perceived directly, either in virtue of a sort of actual and 
continual condensation of the image, or in consequence 
of the traces which it has left in us." Hearing is pro- 
duced, not by the air, but by "some sort of current" 
which, by virtue of the affinity of the small bodies com- 
posing it with one another and their identity in nature 
with the object from which they emanate "puts us very 
frequently into communication of sentiments with this 
object, or at least causes us to become aware of the ex- 
istence of some external circumstances." Perception, in 
this case, depends on a " sort of sympathy " between 
subject and object. The case of smell is similar. — The 
human will is free, and man is accordingly a proper sub- 
ject of moral praise and blame. 

Ethics : First Principle, Pleasure. - — All good and evil, 
says Epicurus, are in sensation : that which is the priva- 
tion or absence of sensation, e.g., death, is nothing to 
us. The first good is pleasure, it being that to which 
all human "choice and avoidance" have reference, "for 
the sake of which we do everything," "the beginning 
and end of living happily " {i.e., well), that without 
which we are unsatisfied and seek it, with which we 
are satisfied and desire nothing. The desire of pleasure 
is connate with us, and it is inherent in animals. No 
pleasure is intrinsically bad ; but not every pleasure is 
always worthy of being chosen, for the " efficient causes 
of some pleasures bring with them a great many pertur- 
bations of pleasure," and the choice of such pleasures 
would contravene the law that pleasure is the chief 
good. Even some pains are better than some pleasures, 



230 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

because of the greatness in degree of the pleasures con- 
sequent upon the choice of them. The pleasure, there- 
fore, that is the chief good, is of a certain sort. 

Kinds of Pleasure. — Now pleasures are in kind 
either bodily or mental, and they are either "motions " 
[the Cyrenaic doctrine], e.g., cheerfulness and joy, or 
"states," e.g., freedom from fear or bodily pain. The 
pleasure that is the chief good is not the bodily pleasure 
of the debauchee, but the "freedom of the body from 
pain and the soul from confusion," "the sober contem- 
plation which examines into the reasons for choice and 
avoidance, and which puts to flight the vain opinions 
from which the greater portion of the confusion arises 
which troubles the soul." But though the pleasures of 
the mind or soul are superior to those of the body, the 
pains of the soul are worse than those of the body, since 
the body is "sensible to present affliction while the 
soul feels the past, present, and future." The noblest 
pleasure is inseparable from prudence and the other 
virtues ; but, nevertheless, not the virtues but pleasure 
is the chief good. " We choose the virtues for the sake 
of pleasure; not on their own account." Justice and 
injustice have no independent existence ; they have 
significance only as means and hindrances to pleasure. 
" Courage does not exist by nature, but is engendered 
by a consideration of what is suitable." "Friendship 
is caused by one's wants," and "arises from a commu- 
nity of participation in pleasures." It appears, then, 
that the highest pleasure is not, as the Cyrenaics de- 
clared, a motion, but a state ; e.g., contentment, freedom 
from ambition, from fear and apprehension. Specifi- 
cally, the highest happiness of which human life is 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 2$ I 

capable is a freedom from all apprehension relative to 
death and eternity, a state of the soul born of the 
knowledge that death is "no concern either of the 
living or of the dead, since to the one it has no exist- 
ence and the other class has no existence itself." 

The "Wise Man." — Epicurus "said that injuries 
existed among men either in consequence of hatred or 
of envy or of contempt, all of which the wise man 
overcomes by reason ; also that a man who has been 
once wise can never receive a contrary disposition, nor 
can he of his own accord invent such a state of things 
as that he should be subjected to the dominion of the 
passions ; nor can he hinder himself in his progress 
towards wisdom ; that the wise man, however, cannot 
exist in every state of body nor in every nation ; 
that if the wise man were to be put to the torture, he 
would still be happy ; that the wise man will not only 
feel gratitude to his friends, but to them equally 
whether they are present or absent. . . . Nor will he 
marry a wife whom the laws forbid. He will punish 
his servants, but also pity them, and show indulgence 
to any that are virtuous. The Epicureans do not think 
that the wise man will ever be in love or that he will 
be anxious about his burial, or that love is a passion 
inspired by the gods. . . . They also assert that he will 
be indifferent to the study of oratory. Marriage, say 
they, is never a benefit to a man, and we must be quite 
content if it does no harm ; and the wise man will never 
marry and beget children . . . still, under certain circum- 
stances of life, he will forsake these rules and marry. 
Nor will he ever indulge in drunkenness, nor will he 
entangle himself in affairs of state. Nor will he be- 



232 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

come a tyrant. Nor will he become a Cynic ... or a 
beggar. And even though he should lose his eyes, he 
will still cling to life. The wise man will be subject to 
grief. He will also not object to go to law. He will 
leave books and memorials of himself behind him ; but 
he will not be fond of frequenting assemblies. He will 
take care of his property, and provide for the future. 
He will like being in the country ; he will resist for- 
tune, and will grieve none of his friends. He will show 
a regard for a fair reputation to such an extent as to 
avoid being despised ; and he will find more pleasure 
than other men in speculations. . . . The wise man 
may raise statues if it suits his inclination ; if it does 
not, it does not signify. The wise man is the only 
person who can converse correctly about music and 
poetry ; and he can realize poems, but not become a 
poet. . . . The wise man will also, if he is in need, earn 
money, but only by his wisdom. He will propitiate an 
absolute ruler when occasion requires, and will humor 
him for the sake of correcting his habits. He will 
have a school, but not on such a system as to draw a 
crowd about him. He will also recite in a multitude, 
but that will be against his inclination. He will pro- 
nounce dogmas. 1 He will be the same man asleep and 
awake, and he will be willing even to die for a friend." 
" It is possible for one man to be wiser than another." 2 
Friendship. — Independent as the " Wise Man " of the 
Epicureans is, he yet needs friends ; and friendship is 

1 Zeller supposes that the long-continued existence of the Epicurean 
school was a consequence of the dogmatism (and conservatism) practised 
and cultivated by Epicurus himself. 

2 Diog. Laert., Life of Zeno, pp. 466-468 (trans, somewhat altered). 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 233 

to him, next to freedom from fear of death, the greatest 
source of pleasure. If one cannot make friends, he 
should avoid making enemies. " The happiest men are 
they who have arrived at the point of having nothing 
to fear from those who surround them ; such men live 
with one another most agreeably, having the firmest 
grounds of confidence in one another, enjoying the 
advantages of friendship in all their fulness, and not 
lamenting as a pitiable circumstance, the premature 
death of their friends." Epicurus's theory here agrees 
precisely with his practice. 

The State. — Towards the state the Epicureans were 
somewhat shy. Epicurus himself, we have seen, avoided 
affairs of state ; and he declared that the wise man 
would never busy himself greatly with these unless 
there were special reasons for so doing. But, as may 
be inferred from Diogenes's account of the Epicurean 
"Wise Man," they did not believe or advocate a 
haughty independence of and disregard for governmen- 
tal authority ; and they were not republican but monar- 
chical in political sentiment. They adopted here as else- 
where an independence for the individual which did not 
overshadow or threaten the independence of any other 
individual. 

Religion. — Substantially the same is the Epicurean 
attitude towards the universal order of things — an at- 
titude of independence and easy freedom. Man, if he 
be wise, is not overawed by the contemplation of 
nature and the gods, but dwells in serenity and happi- 
ness. Nature is not an object of fear or worship ; the 
gods are not reached by divination and prayer ; rather, 
are they to be merely contemplated in their perfect 



234 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

immortality and felicity. Such contemplation is to man 
the source of the purest happiness. 

Historical Sources of the Epicurean Theories. — In 
physics Epicurus was obviously a follower of Democri- 
tus ; in ethics, of the Cyrenaics ; though he departs 
somewhat from the doctrines of both schools. Democ- 
ritus seems to have arrived at his doctrine of the atom 
by combining Eleatic and Heraclitean conceptions : 
Epicurus attempts to deduce the atom from what is 
given in sense as such. To the Cyrenaic doctrine 
of pleasure, Epicurus added an ingredient of subjective 
intellectualism, giving the theory a certain appearance 
of refinement but no higher ethical value. No such 
definite historical sources for the Epicurean canonic 
can be pointed out. 

Result. — The logical key to the system of Epicurus, 
if system it may be called, is doubtless the idea of the 
easy and undisturbed independence and being-for-self of 
the individual. This idea, obviously, has most interest 
for Epicurus in its ethical bearings. His "Wise Man" 
is one who possesses independence, not by positively 
mastering all that might otherwise interfere with his 
independence, or by actively cooperating with others to 
secure for himself and all others the independence he 
seeks, but by withdrawing from the world into a place 
specially prepared for those whose aim is to realize the 
conception of the independent individual in quiet con- 
templation, and pleasant converse with those who are 
not inclined to oppose but mildly to second their 
thoughts and wills. With this view there is a certain 
natural, but not necessary, agreement in the doctrine of 
the atoms and empty space. The atom, like the human 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 235 

individual, is an independent entity and, to a certain 
extent, also, it, like the human individual, follows its 
"own sweet will," — it is self-moving, moves rapidly 
and without violent contact with other atoms, — the 
atoms "flow." As the atoms are independent of one 
another and human individuals likewise, so are man 
and the universe, man and the gods, the gods and the 
worlds surrounding them. There is, however, a certain 
mild sympathy between subject and object in the Epi- 
curean theory of knowledge. Considered as a whole, 
then, the system of Epicurus, though possessing a cer- 
tain kind of inner refined harmony, is not a really logical, 
close, concrete system ; its parts, instead of having the 
ultimate synthetic interrelation that springs from a 
positive, definite, and all-penetrating conception, exist, 
as it were, side by side (as the atoms do in unlimited 
space), held together merely by the vague conception 
of quiet, passive pleasure. 

§ 19. 

The Sceptics. — Under the term Sceptics are here in- 
cluded the so-called Pyrrhonists, Earlier and Later (to 
whom alone, often, the term is applied) and the philoso- 
phers of the so-called Middle and New Academies ; the 
attitude of these thinkers being essentially the same. 
The chief of the Pyrrhonists are Pyrrho, Timon of 
Phlius, dEnesidemns, Agrippa, and Sextus Empiricus ; 
the leading Academicians are Arcesilaus y Carneades, 
and Clitomachus. 

The Pyrrhonists : Lives} — Pyrrho, the first of the 
Sceptics, was an Elean who had imbibed Democritean 

1 See Diog. Laert, pp. 402-423 ; Zeller; Ueberweg. 



236 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

doctrines from a certain philosopher, Anaxarchus, whom 
he accompanied to India in the army of Alexander the 
Great. From Diogenes Laertius we learn that he was 
peculiar, even morbid, in temperament, being extremely 
indifferent and having no sympathy with general human 
nature. There is no reason to suppose that he espe- 
cially admired any of the philosophers (Democritus 
excepted). He is said to have been highly honored by 
his country and much esteemed by certain philosophers, 
among them Epicurus. He died in 270 B.C., at the age 
of ninety. His eccentricity among the philosophers of 
his times appears in the one fact (among others) that 
he left behind him no written works. Diogenes says 
that he had many disciples but very few of them are 
now known. Of these may be mentioned Nausiphanes, 
the instructor of Epicurus, and a certain Timon of 
Phlius (320-230 b.c), who had been a pupil of Stilpo, 
the Megarian, and succeeded Pyrrho as leader of the 
school. Timon had no successor. The Pyrrhonists 
did not possess the social qualities of other thinkers of 
their day. Considerably later than these men, i.e., in 
the first and second centuries a.d., others, styling 
themselves Pyrrhonists, took up and elaborated the 
doctrines of Pyrrho and Timon. Of these we mention 
^Enesidemus of Cnossus (first century), a certain phi- 
losopher by the name of Agrippa, and the celebrated 
Sextus Empiricus (200 a.d.). 

Theories of the Earlier Pyrrhonists. — The position 
of Pyrrho and of Timon, adopted and extended by 
later thinkers, is that there is no criterion of truth 
either in sense or in intellect ; that, consequently, there 
is no knowledge, contradictories are equally true (or 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 237 

false), that the true, philosophic attitude of mind is 
complete suspension of judgment (eVo^/y). These men, 
in other words, finding in the realm of intellect the 
same contradictions that they, like the Eleatics, Hera- 
clitus, Democritus, the Sophists, Plato, and indeed 
nearly all the earlier thinkers had pointed out in the 
realm of sense, developed to its limit a principle that 
had before them not received complete development, 
even in the theories of the Sophists. But Pyrrho and 
Timon did not entirely despair of arriving at truth of a 
certain kind : truth in life, or conduct, they believed 
accessible. They taught here that the truth is imper- 
turbability of mind (arapa^ta), which follows suspension 
of judgment " like a shadow," and unquestioning obe- 
dience to custom and tradition. 

The Later Pyrrhonists : The "Tropes." 1 — By the 
later Pyrrhonists there were advanced against the pos- 
sibility of knowledge certain special modes of view 
termed "tropes" {rpoirot). Ten of these, which are 
attributed to ^Enesidemus, are (in substance) as follows : 
The denying of knowledge on the ground (i) of the differ- 
ences in the feelings of animals as regards pleasure and 
pain, what is injurious or advantageous ; (2) the differ- 
ences in the " nature and idiosyncrasies of men"; (3) 
the "difference of the organs of sense"; (4) the "dis- 
position of the subject [the human individual], and the 
changes in general to which it is liable"; (5) "differ- 
ence in laws and established customs, belief in mythical 
traditions, conventions of art, and dogmatic opinions " ; 
(6) the " promiscuousness and confusion of objects"; 

1 Diog. Laert., Life of Pyrrho, pp. 409-413. 



238 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

(7) "difference as regards the distance, position, space, 
and objects in space " ; (8) differences as regards the 
" magnitudes or qualities of things — heat or coldness, 
speed or slowness, paleness or variety of color," etc ; (9) 
" frequency or rarity or strangeness of the thing under 
consideration " ; (10) " the fact that all things are known 
by comparison with others." In all these cases it is, 
practically, held that there is ground for suspension of 
judgment in the fact that, owing to the differences and 
contrariety of things, it is impossible to apply the law of 
identity, or conception of uniformity; i.e., it is impos- 
sible to think (in the strictest, narrowest sense of the 
term). For example, — to take the third "trope," — 
since an apple is yellow to the sight, sweet to the taste, 
fragrant to the sense of smell, i.e., since sight, taste, and 
smell are different and incommensurable, it is impossi- 
ble to believe that there is in reality anything such as we 
ordinarily believe an apple (say) to be — " what is seen 
is just as likely to be something else than reality." To 
take another example : since " the Persians do not think 
it unnatural for a man to marry his daughter, but among 
the Greeks it is unlawful" "and since the Egyptians 
embalm their dead, and then bury them, the Romans 
burn them, the Paeonians throw them into the lake," no 
positive conclusion regarding marriage or the disposal 
of the dead is possible. The five tropes of Agrippa are 
these : the disagreement in opinion among men ; the 
logical necessity of proceeding in infi7iitiim in the 
attempt to arrive at a fixed, first principle ; the fact that 
no object is perceived independently, but always in 
its relation to something else ; the necessity of start- 
ing always with hypotheses ; the reciprocal nature of 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 239 

proofs, e.g., proving porosity by evaporation and evapo- 
ration by porosity. 

The Impossibility of Demonstration, of a Sign, of a 
Cause, etc. — The possibility of demonstration was de- 
nied by the Sceptics on the ground that there are no 
true indemonstrable premises, and without such all rea- 
soning aiming at ultimate certainty must be a regressus 
in infinitum. It was denied also that anything could 
be regarded as a sign or indication of anything else : 
the invisible obviously cannot be a sign, either of the 
invisible or the visible ; nor can the visible be a sign of 
the invisible, since the two bear no relation to one an- 
other, and finally, there is no need of a sign for the 
visible. Again, the notion of a cause is a spurious con- 
ception. " Cause is something relative. It is relative 
to that of which it is the cause. But that which is rela- 
tive is only conceived and has no real existence. . . . 
However, let us admit, that there are such things as 
causes. In that case, then, a body must be the cause 
of a body or that which is incorporeal must be the 
cause of that which is corporeal. Now, neither of these 
cases is possible ; therefore there is no such thing as a 
cause. In fact, one body cannot be the cause of an- 
other body, since both bodies have the same nature ; 
and if it be said that one is the cause, inasmuch as it 
is a body, then the other must be a cause for the same 
reason. And in that case one would have two recip- 
rocal causes ; two agents without any passive subject. 
Again, one incorporeal thing cannot be the cause of 
another incorporeal thing, for the same reason. Also, 
one incorporeal thing cannot be the cause of a body, 
because nothing that is incorporeal can produce a body. 



24O GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Nor, on the other hand, can a body be the cause of any- 
thing incorporeal, because in every production there 
must be some passive subject-matter; but as what is 
incorporeal is by its own nature protected from being a 
passive subject, it cannot be the object of any produc- 
tive power. There is therefore no such thing as any 
cause at all. From all which it follows that the first 
principles of all things have no reality ; for such a prin- 
ciple, if it did exist, must be both the agent and the 
efficient cause." Motion, the act or possibility of learn- 
ing, the distinction between good and evil, were likewise 
found impossible by the later Pyrrhonists. 

Pure Negativism of the Pyrrhonists. — Pyrrhonism 
reached its culmination when, it being objected (it would 
seem, by the Stoics) that the Pyrrhonists were incon- 
sistent in declaring that they knew nothing and yet 
admitting common fact of experience, or were, even in 
terms self -contradictory in saying that they knew noth- 
ing, because they must know that they did not know, — 
the Pyrrhonists answered that they admitted fact merely 
as such, i.e., not as known and demonstrated fact, and 
that in saying that they knew nothing they merely 
stated a fact, but did not logically define or demonstrate 
their position. "We confess," said they, "that we see, 
and we are aware that we comprehend that such a thing 
is the fact ; but we do not know how we see, or how we 
comprehend"; or, "while we say that we define noth- 
ing, we do not even say that as a definition." 

The Middle and New Academies} — Arcesilaus. — 
Arcesilaus (third century B.C.) had been a pupil of the 

1 See Zeller; Ueberweg; Diog. Laert., pp. 163-170, 177-180. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 24I 

Peripatetic Theophrastus, and of Polemo, Crantor, and 
Crates of the Old Academy. He was the founder of 
the Middle Academy, so-called. His philosophical en- 
ergies were given chiefly to combating the theories of 
the Stoics. He denied validity to the Stoic idea of per- 
ception, or the " cataleptic representation" ((^avracrta 
KaraXijirrtKi]), basing his denial on the very obvious 
ground that a false representation might be of sufficient 
strength to compel assent, as well as a true one ; and he 
reached the position that it was not possible to know 
anything with certainty — not even that we did not 
know. In this he agrees with Pyrrho. He was, also, 
in agreement with Pyrrho in holding probability to be 
the "highest standard for practical life." From Dioge- 
nes, who describes him as a "man of very expensive 
habits," a "sort of second Aristippus," we ought per- 
haps to infer that in ethics Arcesilaus sympathized with 
the Cyrenaics ; we have, at all events, no reason to 
think that he was practically or theoretically an advo- 
cate of impassivity. 

Carneades. 1 — Carneades, the founder of the New 
Academy (second century B.C.), industriously studied 
and combated the Stoic doctrines, gave little attention 
to physics, and was fond of disputing on ethical topics. 
He was a forcible speaker, and drew many persons, even 
from other schools, to hear him. He repeats with added 
illustration the arguments of Arcesilaus and the Pyrrho- 
nists on the worthlessness of the senses and the intel- 
lect as criteria of knowledge. The Stoic theology was 
especially attacked by him. Neither the alleged consen- 

1 See Zeller's Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics. 



242 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

sus gentium, nor the alleged design manifested in nature 
is to him a demonstration of the existence of God ; 
mere agreement of opinion among the majority of the 
human race proves nothing, and the existence of danger 
and destruction, folly, misfortune, misery, and crime in 
the world is sufficient refutation of the supposed fact of a 
providence. But even admitting the appearance of order 
in the world, what necessity is there for affirming the 
existence of a world-soul ? The very idea of a God, an 
infinite personal being, an infinite being possessing the 
intellectual and moral attributes of man, is untenable. 
How can God be subject to the changes of sensation, feel- 
ings of pleasure and pain ? With what reason can he 
be called brave, magnanimous, prudent ? We cannot 
conceive God as limited or unlimited, corporeal or in- 
corporeal. In short, we cannot think of God under the 
forms of sense or of intellect without encountering con- 
tradiction ; we have no right, therefore, to assert posi- 
tively, as the Stoics do, the being of a God. And there 
are no gods ; nor is divination conceivable, since to 
"know accidental events beforehand is impossible, and 
it is useless to know those that are necessary and una- 
voidable, nay, more, it would even be harmful." Any 
supposed cases of fulfilment of prophecy are merely 
cases of accidental coincidence. Further, the human 
will is free, for there is no proof of the existence of 
uniform causality in nature, and we know, as a matter 
of fact, that our decisions are free. Justice is mere 
expediency. We have no positive knowledge ; our only 
guide is probability. Now, probability is of three 
grades : mere probability, unimpeached probability, un- 
impeached and confirmed probability. " The lowest de- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 243 

gree of probability is when a notion produces by itself 
an impression of truth without being taken in connec- 
tion with other notions. The next higher is when that 
impression is confirmed by the agreement of all notions 
which are related to it. The third and highest is when 
an investigation of all these notions results in producing 
the same corroboration for all." "Assent will be given 
to no notion in the sense of its being absolutely true, 
but to many notions in the sense that we consider them 
highly probable." On ethical questions Carneades was 
so fully non-committal that not even his nearest disciple 
got from him any positive view. In this he went be- 
yond all Greek sceptical thinkers, for they, as we have 
seen, admitted that a norm of conduct was to be found 
in tradition and custom. Carneades is a representative, 
therefore, of the most completely developed philosophi- 
cal scepticism in Greece. 

Result. — The position of the Sceptics may be de- 
scribed, in a word, as similar to that expressed by the 
modern phrase "the relativity of knowledge" and is, 
more than any other in the history of ancient philos- 
ophy, allied to the well-known modern philosophical 
attitude denoted by the phrase. But it would, most 
probably, be wrong to suppose that the ancient agnostics 
held to the idea of a real thing-in-itself behind the (sup- 
posed) relative and irreconcilable phenomena. They 
gave up the idea of causation (as we have just seen) with 
all others, the very idea which, when applied to explain 
the origin of knowledge, gives rise to the thing-in-itself. 
By way of general comment, interpretative and critical, 
we have to notice, in the first place, that there is a 
certain evasion on the part of the philosophers we 



244 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

have just been considering of the obligation to think 
everywhere and always as best we can, and a dogmatic 
assumption that thought has for its only presupposition 
and principle the notion of identity. In other words, 
if the Sceptic admits a thing as a fact, must he not 
accept the consequences of inference from the fact, 
must he not ask what the fact means? "Facts" are, 
indeed, not ultimate for philosophical thought but they 
must be given a meaning, and there is properly speak- 
ing, therefore, no such thing as a universal suspension 
of the judgment. Thought can have no other object 
than truth or reality ; and is there not a certain demand 
upon thought in facts recognized as facts, i.e., something 
immediately before the mind, whatever be their content, 
whether sensible or supersensible ? Again, how is sus- 
pension of judgment, pure negativity in thought possi- 
ble? This state of mind, if reflected upon, contains its 
own negation. It is double-sided ; but the Sceptics saw 
only that side which could present itself in the act of 
withdrawing, or abstracting, from contradictory phe- 
nomena. If the Sceptic's principle is Thought, he must 
think and let phenomena fall into his scheme as best 
they may. This the Sceptics did not do ; nor did they, 
on the other hand, take "facts" for what they were 
worth and by a fair induction, supplemented by reflec- 
tion, draw a meaning out of them. The nearest approach 
made to this is contained in Carneades's doctrine of 
probability, which seems not to have been thought of 
as a way to the truth for mind, but only as a way to a 
comfortable mental attitude or a theory adapted to 
"practical purposes" ; which, in other words, contained 
no other necessity than that which implied the impo- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 245 

tency of mind and not the irrational and non-existent 
character of the thing regarded as the object of knowl- 
edge. The Sceptical doctrine, though valid as against 
uncritical dogmatism (e.g., Stoicism), is not valid as 
against the position that in human experience, subject 
and object, thought and phenomenon, are, by the very 
nature of the conditions of experience, correlative : not 
mere identity but identity in difference is the law of 
real thought. We are not at liberty to ignore fact ; we 
are at liberty, and, in fact, obliged, to follow concep- 
tions, and, among them, the conception of pure thought, 
to their consequences. Making allowance for a natural 
difference between sense and thought as forms of 
mental activity, the meanings of fact should tally with 
the positings of thought. It might perhaps be said 
of the theory of the ancient Sceptics, as it was said 
by a modern Sceptic of his own theory, that it was 
unanswerable but convinced nobody. But even this 
need not be said. The Sceptic is not at liberty to 
suspend the judgment : for on the one hand, he must 
make the most of facts, and on the other, he must 
deduce the consequences of a suspension of the judg- 
ment, namely, he must accept and understand the fact 
of mere subjectivity. And this is the service of 
Scepticism — that it brings this fact to light. 

§ 20. 

The Common Ground of the Stoics, Epicureans, and 
Sceptics. — Widely distinct as the schools of which we 
have just been speaking may seem to be, a comparison of 
them with each other and with the schools preceding 
them brings to light a very important point of agreement 



246 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

among them. As distinguished from the thinkers of 
the first period of Greek philosophy, the period of the 
nature-philosophers, these three schools, together with 
Plato and Aristotle, have their principle in the subjec- 
tive (mind) instead of the objective (nature). But with 
Plato and Aristotle, the subjective embraces positively 
the objective in its sway; with the later schools the 
subjective stands in a somewhat doubtful relation to the 
objective, preserving a ^/^-independence, either in the 
midst of the objective, as with the Stoics, or in retire- 
ment from, and a negative attitude towards, the objec- 
tive, as with the Epicureans and Sceptics. A relatively 
higher value is placed upon the particular individual 
subject than had been placed upon it by Plato and 
Aristotle, and the universal subject has a tendency to 
become purely transcendent. The sources and avenues 
of knowledge are supposed to lie in those things which 
are characteristic of man as an individual, i.e., in the 
senses chiefly, and the highest end of conduct is seen 
in that which has primary, if not sole, reference to the 
general individual as such. The philosophy of the 
Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Sceptics is, in tendency, 
if not in actuality, the philosophy of the individual as 
such determining itself : it is Socraticism developed on 
its narrower side and is the most advanced stage then 
yet reached by philosophy in this direction. In Scepti- 
cism the pure abstract individual is hardly distinguish- 
able from the abstract universal, and Scepticism is 
therefore at the very threshold of a philosophy of self- 
determination. In Stoicism and Epicureanism the 
practical renunciation of all outside the individual self is 
incomplete. They are, therefore, slightly less advanced 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 247 

stages of the thought that constitutes the essence of 
Scepticism. In the stress laid by all these schools 
upon the individual, lies their strength as well as their 
weakness. But they only implicitly posited the indi- 
vidual as the universal. 

§ 2I - 

Philosophy in Rome : Eclecticism} — In the schools 
we have just been considering, thought appears to have 
reached a natural limit or, rather, turning-point : ceasing 
(with Aristotle) to be thought for its own sake and in 
its true universal character (the Thought of Thought), 
it has become thought for action's sake ; it is no longer 
the thought of the universal but is the thought of the 
individual. Beyond this limit, or turning-point, thought 
gives place to action, or life. In this direction nothing, 
it would seem, is to be expected of philosophy but a 
repetition of itself or a passing into exhortation and 
conduct. A complete return to a development of the 
earlier standpoint, that of Plato and Aristotle, seems 
practically impossible. The strained, paradoxical indi- 
vidualism of the Stoic doctrine and spirit, the evident 
one-sidedness of Epicureanism, and the destructive 
negativism of Scepticism are all — and particularly the 
last-mentioned — of a character to produce distrust of 
philosophy as a science, to disintegrate and scatter 
thought rather than concentrate it and give it the active 
consciousness of organic totality. Nor was there any- 
thing in the outward fortunes of philosophy to beget — 
directly — this consciousness. The Roman world — and 
all the world at this time was becoming Roman — was 

1 See Zeller's The Eclectics. 



248 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

a world of action. Philosophers were Romans, or, if not, 
must think for Romans : in Rome, even philosophy must, 
literally, "do as the Romans do " and, as it happens, must 
be practical, in the narrowest sense. It must give up, 
to a large extent, its pretension to universality as re- 
gards the object of knowledge or the knowing subject. 
Philosophy, in other words, becomes " eclectic " : the 
individual thinks whatever practical necessity or con- 
venience for him requires or suggests, is governed by 
theoretical necessity neither as regards the source, 
origin, or consistency of his thought. He borrows ideas 
and combines them loosely ; he borrows only such ideas 
as have a practical bearing, and gives them only such 
combination and setting as the practical demands or 
suggests. Differences as regards the amount of bor- 
rowing, the sources from which they borrow, and the 
manner of combining and setting borrowed ideas make 
the differences between the "Eclectics." The Eclectics 
do not, of course, constitute a school in any strict sense 
of the term. The greatest number of the so-called 
Eclectics are of Stoic persuasion ; but we also find 
among them ^^-representatives of the Peripatetic 
School, the Academy, and the Cynic School. The 
Epicureans did not become Eclectics but remained a 
distinct sect. We begin with the later Peripatetics. 

§22. 

The Later Peripatetics. — The later Peripatetics were 
not to any great extent originators of philosophical con- 
ceptions or theories but were chiefly Aristotelian ed- 
itors and commentators. Of these editors and com- 
mentators we may mention Andronicus of Rhodes, by 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 249 

whom, it is supposed, the works of Aristotle " were 
first properly collected and edited" (70 B.C.) ; Bo'e'thus 
of Sidon (first century B.C.) ; an unknown author of a 
remarkable work entitled On the Cosmos ; Alexander of 
jEgce (first century a.d.) ; Aspasiits and Adrastns of 
Aphrodisias (120 a.d.) ; Aristocles of Messene, and, 
particularly, the pupil of Aristocles, Alexander of Aphro- 
disias (200 a.d.), who was known as the Exegete /cariljo- 
yf)v (commentator par excellence). Most of these men 
in their interpretations and developments of Aristotle's 
doctrine incline towards a materialistic view of the uni- 
verse, similar to that held by the earlier Peripatetics 
and by the Stoics. Their effort was directed towards 
removing apparent dualistic features of Aristotle's phi- 
losophy, such as the separateness of God and nature, of 
reason and the lower faculties, of knowledge considered 
as having for its object the universal, and the real as 
the individual. None of these identified God and 
nature ; but they represented God as actively working 
in nature though preserving a distinct identity. They 
attained what is undoubtedly a very exalted conception 
of the Deity. By Alexander of Aphrodisias and others 
the soul was considered a product of the bodily organ- 
ism. Alexander explained the universal as merely a 
form of knowledge ; holding, on the other hand, that 
the individual is the only real. In doing this he did 
not solve the difficulty but merely put it a little aside, 
inasmuch as it does not appear that he asserted the 
organic unity of the universal and the individual. — We 
may, with sufficient propriety, class with these Peripa- 
tetics the celebrated physician Galen (Claudius Gale- 
nus), who lived in the second century a.d. He followed 



250 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Aristotle in logic, physics, and metaphysics, though in- 
clined to keep physical speculation, as such, within 
narrow bounds. He seems to be an example of the 
''scientist" who is cautious in regard to making affirm- 
ations concerning the supersensible, though holding 
belief in the supersensible to be necessitated by reli- 
gious and moral experience. 

§23. 

Later Academics. — Two Eclectic Academicians re- 
quire to be noticed here : Philo of Larissa in Thessaly, 
who succeeded Clitomachus and was at one time 
teacher of Cicero, and Antiochus of Ascalon, a pupil 
of Philo, and at one time head of the Academy. These 
men flourished in the beginning of the first century 
b.c. They repudiated the Middle and New Academics, 
and regarded themselves as true Academicians. 

Philo of Larissa. — Philo would accept neither the 
Sceptical, nor its opposite, the Stoical, theory of cogni- 
tion. He advocated a doctrine of probability, or, rather, 
of a kind of conviction more firm than that resting on 
probability and yet not reaching perfect certainty ; 
what might, perhaps, in current phrases of to-day be 
termed "moral certainty," " practical conviction," "in- 
tuition." His test of truth in ideas was, in other 
words, the self-evidence that belongs, or is supposed to 
belong, particularly to ideas of the moral consciousness. 

Antiochus of Ascalon. — ■ Antiochus, going a step fur- 
ther, denied that the moral consciousness could be satis- 
fied with mere probability ; and, accordingly, attempted 
to refute the Sceptical theory of cognition. He thought 
that the senses are, when in a healthy condition, trust- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 25 I 

worthy, that, though suspension of judgment might be 
necessary in certain individual cases, it is not always 
required, and that the Sceptical theory was self-contra- 
dictory in its conviction of the impossibility of convic- 
tion, and in distinguishing between truth and error, and 
at the same time practically denying the distinction. 
In physics he agreed essentially with the Stoics. In 
ethics he held to a modified Stoicism and was in close 
sympathy with the Old Academy, placing the goods 
and virtues of the body along with those of the soul, 
among the perfect goods and virtues. He is, however, 
chargeable with what, in view of this, is an inconsistency, 
viz., the drawing a broad line of distinction between the 
wise and unwise. He was at one time teacher of 
Cicero, and of Varro, the great Roman scholar. 

§ 24. 

Later Stoics. — Leading Later Stoics are Boethus, 
Pancetius, Posidonius, Varro, Cicero, Seneca, Musonius 
Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. 

Boethus. — Boethus deviated from the doctrine of the 
original Stoics in that he gave as criteria of knowledge, 
reason, desire, and science, as well as perception, denied 
truth to the doctrine of the world-conflagration, denied 
also that God was the soul of the world, and that proph- 
ecy and divination were possible. Three of his reasons 
for the denial of the doctrine of the world-conflagration 
were the following : the world could not be destroyed by 
any cause acting within it, nor by any cause without, 
since there was only void without ; God must become 
an idle being if the world were destroyed ; " after the 
complete annihilation of the world [by fire] this fire 



252 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

must itself be extinguished for want of nourishment, 
and then the new formation of the world would be im- 
possible." 

Pancetins. — Panaetius {circa 180-110 B.C.), who was 
"the chief founder of Roman Stoicism," a friend of 
Scipio Africanus, the Younger, and afterwards head of 
the Stoic school at Athens, departed more widely than 
any of the later Stoics from the dogmatic spirit and the 
tenets of the earlier. He denied divination and the con- 
flagration-theory. He gave to the soul a dualistic charac- 
ter, recognizing a vegetable element, to which he claimed 
that the reproductive function in man belonged, and 
accommodated the Stoic theology to the popular reli- 
gion, and the Stoic ethical system to popular sentiment. 
From him were largely borrowed by Cicero the first two 
books of the celebrated treatise on Duties (De Officiis). 

Posidonius. — Posidonius (first half of first century 
B.C.), another Rhodian who taught the Romans philoso- 
phy, substituted for the Stoic doctrine that the soul is 
rational, the Platonic doctrine that the soul is both 
rational and irrational in its parts. Posidonius held 
that reason cannot, as the earlier Stoics declared, be 
the cause of the passions, which, he thought, are by 
nature, //rational, but that reason and the passions 
exist side by side in the soul as distinct faculties. He 
seems to have been led to this position by the common 
facts of experience, going to show that except in 
highly cultivated natures mere thought or will is not 
sufficient to arouse and control passion. By this view 
Posidonius relaxed the evident strain in the system of 
the earlier Stoics upon the faith of ordinary conscious- 
ness in its own immediate presentments. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 253 

Varro. — Varro rejected the scepticism of the Acad- 
emy and Stoic one-sidedness. According to him hap- 
piness, or the end of life, is virtue plus the external 
goods conditioning it, and requires for its foundation a 
principle of positive knowledge. He is accordingly in 
sympathy with Antiochus and the Old Academy. 

Cicero : Life. — Cicero (106-44 B - c -) holds a place in 
the history of philosophy not so much as an original 
philosophic thinker as one who, by his enthusiasm for 
noble ideas and his power of expression, and by the 
fact that he preserved from oblivion and gave form, 
order, and spirit to many doctrines of older thinkers, 
contributed to the spread and extended influence of 
philosophic conceptions and spirit among men. His 
interest in and study of philosophy, which seems to have 
had its origin in rhetorical or oratorical studies and 
ambition, began early and continued, so far as his polit- 
ical occupation permitted, throughout life, the last two 
or three years of his life being entirely devoted to the 
composition, or compilation, of philosophical works. 
His first teacher in philosophy was the Epicurean Phae- 
drus, who was lecturing in Rome about the year 88 B.C. 
Though Cicero " seems to have been converted at once 
to the tenets of his master," 1 he was soon after led 
to abandon them. At about the same time he studied 
dialectic (chiefly) with the Stoic Diodotus, without, how- 
ever, accepting the Stoic doctrine as a whole. He was 
more attracted by Philo of Larissa, who came to Rome 
at this time. Philo, it seems, was a brilliant orator, 
roused in Cicero the highest enthusiasm for his subject, 

1 See Introduction to J. S. Reid's The Academica of Cicero. 



254 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

and converted him from Epicureanism to the stand- 
point of the Academy. The next seven years (after 
88 B.C.) were given to the study of philosophy, law, and 
literature. Two years at a later time were " spent in 
the society of Greek philosophers and rhetoricians." At 
this time he heard at Athens the Epicurean Zeno of 
Sidon, and, also, Phaedrus, whom ten years before he 
had heard at Rome. He was influenced chiefly by 
Antiochus of Ascalon, whom he admired for his dialect- 
ical skill and the pointedness of his style. At Rhodes 
he met Posidonius, who seems to have been his model 
among the Stoics as Antiochus was among the Academ- 
ics. Until quite recently it has been customary to at- 
tach comparatively little importance to Cicero as a phi- 
losopher because his philosophical works are, avowedly, 
chiefly translations and paraphrases of the writings of 
Greek philosophers ; but there seems to be at the pres- 
ent moment a growing disposition to give him high 
praise for his enthusiasm for philosophical culture in an 
age and country not especially favorable to philosophy, 
and for preserving from oblivion, and infusing order 
and spirit into, the dogmas of the later Greek schools 
of thought. Of the early Greek thinkers, it should 
be said here, he knew little or nothing ; nor was he 
master of the ideas of either Socrates, Plato, or Aris- 
totle. He is, rather, a child of the individualistic and 
subjective thinkers of the later periods of Greek 
thought. The motive of Cicero's philosophical writ- 
ing was, if not that of the original truth-seeker, that 
of the truth-lover and patriot who was desirous that his 
country should have the benefit, in its own tongue, of 
the thought of a more cultivated and thoughtful people. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 255 

Cicero s General Conception of Philosophy. — Entirely 
in accordance with the spirit of the age, and particularly 
with the spirit of the Roman people, Cicero looked upon 
philosophy chiefly as a thing having to do with practi- 
cal life. Philosophy is the love of wisdom, and wisdom 
is the knowledge of things divine and human, "which 
comprehends the fellowship of gods and men, and their 
society within themselves." Ethics is thus given the 
first place in philosophy. Logic is recognized as having 
value because it supplies the method and the criteria of 
truth, and physics because it raises the mind above mean 
interests to the contemplation of the divine, and affords 
it high rational enjoyment. Cicero cannot in this re- 
spect be charged with anything like Cynic narrowness ; 
he has a most genuine enthusiasm for science and learn- 
ing, is indeed far superior to his age in this regard. 
But the wise and good man, if called upon by a danger 
threatening his country to make a choice between scien- 
tific studies and his country's good would, according to 
Cicero, feel obliged to choose the latter. 

Theory of Knowledge. — In regard to knowledge as 
such and the standard of truth, the most impressive fact 
to Cicero's mind seems to have been that of the wide 
variety of opinion among men and of doubts that 
might be easily raised regarding our ability to know 
our own bodies, our souls, God, nature, etc. Cicero 
deems the proper attitude of mind to be that of the 
Academy, viz., doubt, or suspension of judgment, leav- 
ing room, however, for the acceptance of what seems 
highly probable. But as Cicero's interest was not, like 
that of Carneades, polemical, he looks upon doubt less 
as an end in itself than as a necessary preliminary to 



256 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

free undogmatic belief in what seems most probable. 
He agrees with the Sceptics in holding nothing as ab- 
solutely certain, but with the dogmatists, also, in holding 
as firmly as possible to the truth as far as it is, or can 
be, known by us. In other words, there must be a 
rational basis for action, and such basis must consist in 
the probable which is made a ground of decided and 
decisive belief. The highest probability belongs, ac- 
cording to Cicero, to the presentments of the moral 
consciousness, which are innate truth. Nature, he 
says, bestowed upon man a "mind capable of grasping 
all virtue, and, apart from any teaching, implanted in 
him rudimentary ideas of the most important matters, 
and began, so to speak, and included among his consti- 
tutional endowments, the groundwork, as we may call 
it, of the virtues." 1 The senses, also, and the consensus 
gentium are to be trusted. 

Physics. — In physics Cicero's chief interest lies in 
questions relating to God, freedom, and immortality, 
questions having to him the highest ethical bearing. 
The ground for belief in God, the immortality of the 
soul, and the freedom of the will is, that such belief is 
innate and common to the race. God is the " creator, 
or, at least, the ruler of all things." " He is free and 
remote from all mortal mixture, perceiving and moving 
all things, and endued with eternal motion in himself." 
He is not declared by Cicero to be immaterial. The 
human soul has close affinity with God, and has on that 
account high worth, and high obligation resting upon it. 

Ethics. — Cicero's position in ethics is indeed Eclectic ; 

1 De Finibus Bonorum el Malorum (trans, by J. S. Reid), V. 21, 59. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 257 

even somewhat vacillating and inconsistent, but is on 
the whole, perhaps, Stoical, with a certain leaning 
towards the position of the Later Peripatetics. To him 
virtue is the highest, the only unconditional good ; but 
there is a very evident desire on his part to unite to 
virtue as a necessary and universal concomitant the 
"expedient." The perfect austerity of the old Stoic 
ethics is not an element in Cicero's ethical ideal, argue 
as eloquently as he may against the allowing of expe- 
diency to take the place of virtue. The whole of the 
Second Book of one of his chief ethical works, the De 
OfficiiSy is taken up with showing how " the expedient " 
is to be attained. Virtue, the honestum, is, according 
to Cicero, one ; but it is of four varieties, — wisdom 
(the highest virtue), justice, magnanimity (large-souled- 
ness), and moderation : " sagacity and the perception of 
truth," "the preservation of society by giving to every 
man his due and by observing the faith of contracts " ; 
" the greatness and firmness of an elevated and unsub- 
dued mind" ; the observing of "order and regularity in 
all our actions." Cicero's divergence from the old Stoic 
conception of virtue is greatest in his idea of temper- 
ance, or moderation. To him this is grace and sweet- 
ness, polish of manner, as well as regularity and control 
of appetites ; it is perfect fitness and adaptation of manner 
and conduct ; it is culture, urbanity. He says that it 
is more easy to conceive than to express the difference 
between "what is virtuous " [in the broad sense], which 
he styles the honestum, and "what is graceful," or 
the decorum. In this there seems to be the manifes- 
tation of a tendency to allow the latter to swallow up the 
former. He finds that the Stoics are sometimes guilty 



258 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

of "subverting delicacy," as were the Cynics, and says, 
"Let us, for our parts, follow nature, and avoid what- 
ever is offensive to the eyes or ears ; let us aim at the 
graceful or becoming \decorum"\ whether we stand or 
walk, whether we sit or lie down, in every motion of 
our features, our eyes, our hands." The ethics of Cicero 
is, in short, the Stoic ethics refined, or humanized : pain 
and pleasure are to him not "indifferent," as to the old 
Stoics. This refinement, or humanism, also appears 
markedly in Cicero's conception of friendship, which 
he places next to wisdom among the things most valu- 
able to man, and defines as nothing else than a complete 
union of feeling on all subjects, human and divine, 
accompanied by kindly feeling and attachment. Cicero 
did not attain, however, to the conception of a universal 
love towards men. 

Seneca: Life. — The leading Eclectic Stoic of the next 
century is Seneca (3-65 a.d.). Seneca was educated 
in the school of the Sextians (a noted though short-lived 
sect in Rome that united a kind of Cynicism with Pythag- 
orean rules of life, preaching a moral life and putting 
forth no speculative doctrines), and thence had in him 
a strong touch of asceticism, which appears particularly 
in his doctrine of the soul and its relation to the body. 
He was teacher and political counsellor of the wicked 
emperor Nero, and had weaknesses of character that 
were inconsistent with true philosophy and certainly 
quite discordant with the principles of Stoicism. 

Seneca s Philosophy. — In Seneca, philosophy is prac- 
tically reduced to ethics. He attached no importance 
to logic, and held to physics (in which he followed 
closely the Stoics of the Old School) chiefly for its ethi- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 259 

cal bearing. In his doctrine of the nature of the soul, 
Seneca gives up the simple monism of the Stoics for the 
dualism of Plato, keenly realizing what the older Stoics 
had not allowed themselves to recognize, the natural 
conflict between "passion and reason." "The body, or, 
as he contemptuously calls it, the flesh, is something so 
worthless that we cannot think meanly enough of it : it 
is a mere husk of the soul, a tenement into which it has 
entered for a short time, and can never feel itself at 
home, a burden by which it is impressed, a fetter or 
prison for the loosing and opening of which it must nec- 
essarily long ; with its flesh it must necessarily do bat- 
tle ; through its body it is exposed to attack and suffer- 
ing ; but in itself it is pure and invulnerable, exalted 
above the body, even as God is exalted above matter. 
The true life of the soul begins, therefore, with its de- 
parture from the body." 1 We have here an echo of 
Plato's Phcedrus. Seneca was forbidden, by his mate- 
rialistic conception of the nature of the soul, to posit 
unconditionally the immortality of the soul. Although 
giving theoretical assent to the Stoic ideal of the Wise 
Man, he seems to have felt obliged to doubt (as did most 
of the later thinkers who were in sympathy with the 
Stoics, but could not so completely abstract from envi- 
ronment) that the ideal was one that could be realized. 
He saw, rather, in the conditions of human life the 
necessity for self-criticism and internal conflict. Instead 
of the strong tendency manifest in the earlier Stoic doc- 
trine to self-complacent individualism, there appears in 
Seneca a consciousness of human imperfection, which 

1 Zeller's Eclectics, p. 222. 



26o GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

bears fruit in a disinterested regard for men in general. 
" The real crown of his moral doctrine lies in the uni- 
versal love of man, the purely human interest which 
bestows itself on all without distinction, even the mean- 
est and most despised, which even in the slave does 
not forget the man; in that gentleness of disposition 
which is so especially antagonistic to anger and hatred, 
tyranny, and cruelty, and which considers nothing 
worthier of a man and more according to nature than 
forgiving mercy, and benevolence that is unselfish 
and disseminates happiness in secret, imitating the 
divine goodness towards the evil and the good ; which, 
mindful of human weakness, would rather spare than 
punish, does not exclude even enemies from its good- 
will, and will not return even injury with injury." 1 
It was by virtue of the influence of this mildness and 
sympathy that the rather heartless theology of the 
older Stoics became in Seneca a true religion. In 
Seneca, Stoicism verges upon its opposite. 

Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius. — 
Deserving of mention, though they seem to have con- 
tributed nothing to philosophy as a science, are Musonius 
Rufus (latter part of the first century a.d.), Epictetus 
(about the same time), a Phrygian slave who taught phi- 
losophy in Rome, and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the 
Roman Emperor (i 21-180 a.d.). Epictetus was a pupil 
of Musonius, and Marcus Aurelius a profound admirer 
of Epictetus ; so that there is a close historical connec- 
tion between the three. They are also in essential 
agreement in their spirit and teachings. Completely 
possessed by the ethical idea, the whole force of their 

1 Zeller's Eclectics, p. 240. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 26 1 

philosophizing goes toward rendering the individual a, so 
to say, moral sphere, perfect in itself and without rela- 
tion of dependence, positive or negative, to others. They 
teach the doctrine of an all-pervading, over-ruling Provi- 
dence and of a kind but dispassionate regard for man. 
They belong to the noble class of conservators and dis- 
seminators of the ethical spirit. Epictetus and Marcus 
Aurelius taught a reverence for " the God (Sai/jicov) 
within." Their philosophy is, of course, of the Stoic 
type, with a tendency to simple Cynicism. 

Cynics. — Later came philosophers of the pure Cynical 
type, who may be looked upon as Stoics reverted to the 
original prototype of Stoicism, i.e., the Cynicism of 
Antisthenes and Diogenes, the most fundamental and 
permanent element of Stoicism being its disguised 
Cynicism. 

General Character of the Second Period in the History 
of Greek Philosophy. — A review of Greek thought from 
the end of what was designated as the First Period dis- 
covers a common fundamental characteristic in the (more 
or less conscious) assumption that truth and reality are 
contained in reason, (mind, thought, vovs) regarded 
either as opposed or as indifferent to nature (the primary 
object of thought in the First Period) or as wholly above 
and beyond nature and phenomena generally or, finally, 
as above or higher than nature but embracing or at least 
constituting the essence of nature and phenomena gen- 
erally. Hence the designation Rationalism (p. 34) for 
this period. It is perhaps hazardous to attempt a dog- 
matic and precise classification of thinkers and schools on 



262 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the basis thus afforded for classification, but some such 
one as the following appears substantially correct. The 
representatives of the assumption or view that reason 
is opposed, or at least indifferent to, phenomena taken 
in their universal character are the Sophists, Socrates (?), 
the Cynics, Cyrenaics, the early Stoics (in ethics), the 
Epicureans, the Sceptics, the Eclectic Stoics, Academics, 
and Cynics ; of the assumption that reason is wholly 
above and beyond phenomena, the Megarians ; of the 
assumption that reason, though higher than nature, 
embraces it or constitutes its essence, Plato, the leading 
members of the Old Academy, Aristotle, the Peripatetics, 
the Stoics (in physics), and the Eclectic Peripatetics, — 
Plato and Aristotle tending toward a supra-rationalism, 
and the others toward a kind of rationalistic naturalism, 
i.e., the identification of reason with nature. The gen- 
eral tendency of thought may be described as being 
toward the point of view of the first-named assumption, 
i.e., toward subjectivism, away from universalism. But 
because of the contradictory character of the rationalistic 
standpoint as thus developed by the actual course of 
thought, a natural step for thought is to abandon this 
standpoint for another, the supra-rationalistic. The 
position of the Megarians is allied to the supra-rational- 
istic in all, perhaps, but as regards name. The One of 
the Megarians like the Being of the Eleatics was the 
object of thought, or reason, not of a power above rea- 
son. In Plato and Aristotle,, in the idea of the good 
which is above science and being, or essence, and the 
thought of thought, which is above the heavens — we 
have a distinct suggestion of a higher standpoint than 
the ordinary use of the term reason in the period covers. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 263 

III. SUPRA-RATIONALISM (AND SUPRA-NATURALISM). 

§26. 

Standpoint and Schools of the Third and Latest Period 
in Greek Philosophy. — As a matter of fact it was just 
this supra-rationalism (and hence supra-naturalism) that 
became the standpoint of the thinkers and schools of 
the latest period of Greek thought. Such a standpoint 
was in part involved even in the common, non-philo- 
sophical consciousness of the time, — one century B.C. 
and several centuries afterwards, — which was filled with 
(supposed) intimations of and with aspirations towards 
the supra-natural : belief in magic, the existence of 
"daemons," a prophetic character in dreams, and, of 
course, in the immortality of the soul, was rife ; 2 and it 
was but natural that an attempt should be made to find 
a real warrant, a philosophical basis, for such intimations 
and aspirations. It was natural also that such basis 
and warrant should, first of all, be looked for in systems 
of philosophy already in existence. As a matter of 
fact, it was found particularly in the systems of the 
Pythagoreans, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics ; and cer- 
tain systems arose that were little more than professed 
rehabilitations of these systems, and having in common 
with one another, not only the same general aim but 
many doctrines, adopted from these systems. To the 
schools thus arising have been applied the names, Alex- 
andrian, or Jewish- Alexandrian (Platonic and Aristote- 
lian), Neo-Pythagorean, Eclectic-Platonic, Neo-Platonic, 
etc. 

1 See an interesting discussion on this point in A. W. Benn's The Greek 
Philosophers, Vol. II. ch. 4. 



264 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

§27- 

Jewish-Alexandrian Schools. — Of the philosophers of 
the Jewish- Alexandrian school we speak of Aristobulus 
(160 B.C.), who appears to have been the first to com- 
bine Jewish and Greek conceptions, and of Philo Ju- 
daeus, a (Jewish) theologian of Alexandria, who flour- 
ished in the first part of the first century a.d., and, like 
Aristobulus, combined Jewish and Greek conceptions. 
Alexandria was at this time a meeting-place for the 
whole Mediterranean world, and a natural point of syn- 
cretism, also, for the ideas of that world. 

Aristobulus. — Aristobulus held that the world is 
ruled by a divine power (not God but a "potency" of 
God), and that God is extra-mundane, visible only to 
reason (vov$). "In interpreting the [Jewish] seven 
days' work of creation, Aristobulus interprets, meta- 
phorically, the light, which was created on the first day, 
as symbolizing the wisdom by which all things are 
illumined, which some of the Peripatetic philosophers 
had compared to a torch ; but, he adds, one of his own 
nation (Solomon, Prov. viii. 22 seq. ?) had testified of it 
more distinctly and finely, that it existed before the 
heavens and the earth. Aristobulus then endeavors to 
show how the whole order of the world rests on the 
number seven." 1 

Philo Jtidceus : General Attitude?' — Philo built up a 
philosophical system out of material borrowed from 
the Greek philosophers and treated in the spirit of the 
Hebrew, or, rather, Oriental conception of God as the 

1 Ueberweg's Hist, of Phil., Vol. I. p. 227. 

2 Ritter and Ueberweg. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 265 

sole being and as remotely transcendent above the 
world. Naturally, therefore, he treats the logic and 
physics of the earlier philosophers (so far as these 
divisions of philosophy are concerned with mundane 
things and are within the general range of human intel- 
ligence) as of comparatively slight consequence, and 
converts philosophy into higher theology. 

Theory of Knowledge. — Philo agrees with the Scep- 
tics (Academicians) as to the inability of the human 
mind to attain to knowledge of the real, but instead 
of adopting their theory of probability, makes knowl- 
edge possible as a "gift" from God, a revelation. This 
knowledge comes to man when in a certain state of 
soul denominated "enthusiasm," a "reposeful divine 
rapture," in which the soul, liberated from sense and 
absorbed in itself, is fructified by God. In such a reve- 
lation is contained for man the knowledge of the prob- 
able ground of things : God is too high above human 
thought to be clearly apprehended by it even in a state 
of " enthusiasm." Man may by his own effort become 
capable of such a revelation, worthy of such a gift, 
through philosophic thought ; the revelation itself is a 
gift. Philosophy is the highest form of human knowl- 
edge strictly as such. Other sciences, i.e., grammar, 
rhetoric, geometry, etc., are but limited in power : they 
are merely propaedeutic to the higher wisdom. They 
have value as media between sense and reason, but 
true knowledge is given not in sense-perception nor 
in demonstration, but in " immediate intuition," an 
activity or condition of the soul in which there is 
no cooperation of bodily activity. Knowledge of the 
individual object is the lowest form of knowledge, the 



266 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

highest form being concerned with the highest genus, 
being. Of being, however, we only know that it is, 
which is practically all that we know of God as he is 
in himself. 

God. — According to this theory of knowledge, God 
is the sole self-existent being, without properties, un- 
mixed, higher than virtue and science, than beauty and 
goodness; he has no name, is unknowable, simply is. 
And yet he is, if we must ascribe to him attributes, 
immutable, supremely happy, supremely good, universal 
reason, supra-sensible light ; he is (like the Prime Mover 
of Aristotle) above and out of the world ; present in it 
by his power, not by his substance, or essence. 

The Logos. — The middle term between God and the 
world, i.e., his power, lies in his energies, or potencies 
(which, though attributes, are distinct from him), which 
are emanations from him, and the totality and unity of 
which is the Logos (\6yos), or Word. The highest of 
these is creative power, second is the "ruling potency," 
third, the "fore-seeing," fourth, the "law-giving," etc. 
These are to be conceived as personal activities and, 
perhaps, beings (like the Ideas of Plato). Though God 
is the creator, the Logos is ruler, his minister, and 
" Second God." As related to both God and the world, 
the Logos (Word) has a double nature, which may be 
symbolized by an inward thought and an expressed 
thought in their union, or interrelation. The Logos 
(sometimes designated as Sophia) is thus an image of 
God and the archetype of the world, or, adopting the 
terminology of Plato, whom Philo here in a manner fol- 
lows, the Logos is the Idea, the Idea of Ideas, the 
"place" (toVo?) of Ideas, the supra-sensible world. The 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 267 

Ideas (or potencies), whose place and totality the Logos 
is, are ministering powers, angels, differing in degree of 
excellence and together constituting a hierarchy. When 
not illumined by the light of God, man may be illumined 
by that of the angels. The supra-sensible world, though 
gradated down to the sensible, is quite distinct from it. 

The Sensible World and Matter. — The sensible world 
is a copy and reflection of the supra-sensible. It was 
created, through the instrumentality of the Logos, out 
of matter, which is purely corporeal, without form or 
property, inert, motionless, passive, potential, the source 
of imperfection in the sensible world, God being author 
only of that which is good. Matter, it thus appears, is 
in the system of Philo even more than in earlier sys- 
tems a necessary, irreducible element. 

Man. — Between the sensible and supra-sensible worlds 
stands man. By the world of sense man is seduced 
from God and put under the rule of material necessity 
and imperfection, but as a child of the Logos, as a 
rational being, capable of knowing (in part) and aspir- 
ing after divine excellence, he is subject to the law of 
justice and must be regarded as free. Man's supreme 
good is divine contemplation, or " mental peace and re- 
pose, and joy in God." This is also his virtue, for in 
virtue alone goodness lies. In virtue the pleasure of 
sense has no place and human science has only a subor- 
dinate one, virtue being a " gift " from God. The four 
virtues assumed by Plato are by Philo treated as but 
(lower) forms of one virtue, viz., "goodness after the 
pattern of divine wisdom." This wisdom is higher than 
prudence, which is earthly, merely. Thr^e degrees of 
virtue are — to begin with the lowest — virtue resulting 



268 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. • 

from (human) science, virtue resulting from an ascetic 
life, and virtue that is a natural "gift." The two first 
mentioned are human ; the last is divine. These three 
are interdependent. A fourth kind of virtue is that hav- 
ing as its condition philosophic science ; it is, however, a 
gift, as is natural virtue, with which on this account it 
is on a level. Other virtues or, rather, perhaps, condi- 
tions to virtue, are hope, repentance, and justice. 

Result. — The most conspicuous historical sources of 
Philo's doctrines are the scepticism of the Later Aca- 
demics, the Platonic theory of Ideas (of which Philo sup- 
posed Moses to be the real originator), and the Stoic 
ethics and physics. He owed much also to the Pythago- 
reans ; was a debtor, indeed, to most of the leading 
earlier systems in the history of Greek philosophy. His 
theory of knowledge and virtue as gifts from God is 
original and distinctive, — a new growth in the his- 
tory of Greek thought. Similar to it, perhaps, may 
seem Plato's idea that knowledge is the working of the 
Idea in man, or that we rise to the Idea of the Good by 
an act of soul higher than science, and Cicero's thought 
that there is in man an innate perception of virtue, God, 
and immortality. But the extremes of the system of 
Philo, owing to the Oriental remoteness of God from 
the world, are so distinctly separated that they are 
brought together only by an act of speculative imagi- 
nation, or faith, whereas neither Plato nor Cicero steps 
outside the sphere of thought, or the conception of the 
objective organic whole. The point and principle of 
synthesis in the system of Philo is an unexplained sub- 
jective emotion (i.e., aspiration towards God) ; in the 
systems of Plato and Cicero it is an intellectual effort to 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 269 

grasp (not passively apprehend) things mentally in their 
unity. According to Philo, spiritual knowledge is given 
to man ; according to Plato and Cicero, man acquires 
such knowledge by means of a power possessed by him- 
self, the function of which is just that of seizing upon 
the thing knowable. (By Pla£o the existence of such 
a power is deduced ; by Cicero it is, rather, assumed.) 
Philo' s place is therefore among mystical philosophers ; 
he is a theologian who has based himself upon religious 
feeling without giving an intelligible account of it and 
of the process (" intuition ") by which it reaches its goal, 
the knowledge of God. It may not inappropriately be 
added concerning him as a theologian that he practised 
an unliteral, allegorical interpretation of the Jewish Scrip- 
tures (analogous to the Stoic rationalizing of myths), 
and that because of his belief in the "impurity of mat- 
ter," he did not conceive of the Logos as incarnated 
" nor identify the Logos with the expected Messias, to 
which course, nevertheless, he was powerfully moved 
by the practical and spiritual interest connected with 
redemption through the Messias." x 

§28. 

Neo-Pythagoreanism. — Pythagoreanism was revived 
in the first century B.C. by a certain P. Nigidius Fign- 
lus. The school thus originated is known as the Neo^ 
Pythagorean School. 

§ 29. 

The Eclectic Platonists. — We must mention here the 

1 See Ueberweg. 



27O GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

historian Plutarch {circa 50-125 a.d.), who is placed 
among those Eclectics who kept most closely to the 
doctrines of Plato himself. 

§ 30. 

Neo-Platonism. — Platonism was revived by an Alex- 
andrian named Ammonites Saccas, of whom little else 
is known except that he was the teacher of Plotinus 
(presently to be spoken of), and must have nourished 
in the early part of the third century a.d. He is said 
to have regarded the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle 
as substantially one and the same, and to have taught 
both in their purity. Other leading Neo-Platonists are 
Plotinus, Porphyry, Jamb lie hus, and Proclus. 

Life of Plotinus. — Plotinus {circa 205-270 a.d.), a 
native of Lycopolis, in Egypt, studied philosophy eleven 
years in the school of Ammonius Saccas, and went, at 
about the age of forty, to Rome and opened there a school 
of philosophy, which was attended by a large number of 
persons of learning and eminence, both male and female. 
Here he taught for twenty-six years. He was of ascetic 
habits, was ashamed of his body, ate neither flesh nor 
bread, despised medicine, was averse to giving informa- 
tion of his personal history. He appears to have aimed 
at a philosophical culture that should, as far as possible, 
strip the outward individual as such of his attributes ; 
and one of his practical projects was the founding of a 
state with a constitution such as that expounded in 
Plato's Laws. In the ascetic and mystic character of 
his ideals he resembled, it would seem, the Pythagore- 
ans ; and yet there can be no doubt that he regarded 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 27 1 

the theoretical as far above the level of the practical, — 
philosophical contemplation as above narrow moral dis- 
cipline. His works, fifty-four in all, were arranged and 
edited by his pupil Porphyry, in a collection of six 
groups, of nine works each, whence the name Enneads 
(evvea = nine)} Plotinus was a violent opponent of the 
pugnacious Christianity of his age ; but both in his life 
and in his writings there stands out in full relief the 
desire and purpose to hold the mind above the things 
of mere sense and in the light of its own pure nature. 
Dialectic. — Plotinus, as did his master Plato, particu- 
larly in the middle period of his philosophizing, 2 held 
philosophy or, rather, perhaps, the approach to it, to 
consist in a mental flight from this world to a higher 
region, in becoming "like God," an ascent to the Idea 
of the Good ; and in his opuscule, On Dialectic, he ex- 
plains, after the manner of Plato, the method or mode 
of ascent to the Idea of the Good from the level of 
the born musician, lover, and philosopher, who are 
gifted, each in a particular way, with a finer perception 
than most men, of the harmony that lies veiled in the 
sensuous world. The perception which the musician 
and lover have of the harmony and inner truth of things 
is overpowered by "astonishment," the mere sensation 
of the beautiful ; and these gifted natures have first to 
be raised to a standpoint from which they can distin- 
guish the principles of beauty (e.g., concord, rhythm, 
figure) in objects of sense from the immediate environ- 
ment of those principles. They may then contemplate 

1 See Ueberweg's History of Philosophy for the subjects, grouping, and 
chronological order of the works. 

2 See Thecetetus, p. 176; also, Phcedrus and Republic. 



272 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

those principles in a higher grade of development (e.g., 
beautiful pursuits and laws) and then pass on through 
the study of the sciences to dialectic, or the science of 
thought and being, which is the " immediate instru- 
ment " of the Good itself. The born-philosopher does 
not require to be disengaged from meshes of sense and 
feeling; he is naturally quick to perceive thought-dis- 
tinctions, but is somewhat dubious and only in want of 
some one to "indicate the way." He passes readily 
from the particular to the universal, and, after having 
received a training in the sciences, finds dialectic to be 
his native element. What then is dialectic ? " It is a 
habit enabling its possessor to reason about everything, 
to know what each thing is, in what it differs from 
other things, what the common something is in or of 
which it participates, where each of these is, if a thing 
is, what it is, what the number of beings is, and of 
non-beings (which are not nothing but different from 
beings). It also discusses the Good and the contrary 
of it, the Eternal and its contrary. All these things 
it discusses scientifically and not from opinion." " It 
employs division, obtains knowledge of the first genera 
of things, intellectually connecting that which results 
from them till it has proceeded through the whole of 
an intelligible nature, and again by an analytic process 
it arrives at that to which it proceeded from the first." 1 
Dialectic is not merely the instrument of philosophy : 
" it is concerned with being and what lies beyond being : 
it knows the motions of the soul, what the soul admits 
and what it rejects" ; it understands manner, virtues, 

1 Select Works of Plotinus (trans, by T. Taylor). 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 273 

habits, passions, actions. It is the "most honorable 
part " of philosophy, but it presupposes, and is presup- 
posed by, the other parts. It is not possible to know 
dialectic without knowing "inferior concerns"; but 
though these may be in a manner understood " without 
dialectic," the knowledge of them is perfected by dialec- 
tic. The first principles of dialectic have their origin 
in intellect and not in any faculty or activity of the 
soul relating particularly to " inferior concerns." Dia- 
lectic in its highest form stands above, and "surveys," 
logic, or the principles of the understanding, or dianoetic 
faculty, which immediately govern the sciences relating 
to inferior concerns. The foregoing, which, it is to be 
observed, is quite Platonic in quality, elevates us to the 
standpoint of Plotinus, the standpoint of speculation 
(vision), or pure thought, or self-consciousness. Another 
account of the steps leading to this standpoint (which 
should be added to the foregoing, not only because it 
is more scientific but also because the meaning of 
Plotinus's philosophy is easily missed without care in 
the attempt to approach his standpoint) is the follow- 
ing : 1 The standpoint of sense is, naturally and neces- 
sarily for most men, prior to that of thought. Some 
never get beyond this ; considering the things of sense 
" as the first and last of things and apprehending that 
whatever is painful among these is evil and whatever is 
pleasant is good." "Others are in a small degree ele- 
vated from things subordinate, the more excellent parts 
of the soul recalling them from pleasure to a more 
worthy pursuit." "Others through a more excellent 

1 See On Intellect, Ideas, and Being (Taylor's trans.). 



274 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

power and with piercing eyes, acutely perceive supernal 
light, to the vision of which they raise themselves 
above the clouds and darkness, as it were, of the lower 
world, and there abiding despise these regions of sense, 
being no otherwise delighted with the place which is 
truly and properly their own, than he who after many 
wanderings is at length restored to his lawful country." 
Concisely stated, the steps of progression in the love 
and knowledge of the beautiful are : first, love of sensi- 
ble beauty ; second, " love* of the beauty of science 
and virtue and of beauty of soul " ; third, love of the 
" cause of beauty of soul " ; fourth, love of " that which 
is first and which is beautiful from itself." In this 
last alone is there complete satisfaction (" liberation 
from parturiency ") for the soul that is in intellectual 
travail. 

Reason, Intellect, or Nous : the Realm of Ideas. — 
Since the ascent to the realm of that which is " beautiful 
from itself " has been by a process of abstracting from 
the uniformities and types in thi7igs, and thinking more 
and more of the types in themselves, that which is " first 
and beautiful from itself" must be conceived as the realm 
of pure types or forms, which is intellect, or reason. Soul 
is not that which is " first and beautiful from itself," 
because, if it were, one soul would not be beautiful and 
wise, and another unwise and base (as now is the case) ; 
soul is subject to passions, or passive changing states : it 
is linked with the sensible world and, as thus involved 
(incidentally) in motion, is in " capacity " not in 
" energy " (Aristotle's distinction of SiW/>w? and ivep- 
ryeia). Soul is beautiful merely as participating in intel- 
lect, or reason ; reason alone is in energy and always in 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 275 

itself, for itself, and from itself. In reason, things are 
known as they really are, and the knower and the known 
are one. Reason is the place of being, the totality of 
pure forms, and of knowledge. If intellectual percep- 
tion were not a perception of being, then intellect were 
only a " capacity " or "possibility, " but we must have 
that which is in energy, and intellect is seen to be such 
only when the objects of intellectual perception are in 
intellect itself. If they were elsewhere, or outside of 
intellect, or had no being, then intellect would only be 
in capacity not real intellect and the objects of its per- 
ception not being. Intellect is, then, both that which is 
and that which knows. And, further, in so far as sen- 
sible things participate in types, they are objects of 
intellect ; and not only so, but since intellect, or reason, 
has only itself for its object, they are creations of intel- 
lect. Further, still, it is the same thing to perceive 
intellectually and to be. In intellect all things subsist 
collectively, or at the same time, and yet as one, just as 
in the seed are contained all the potentialities of the 
future plant. But there is in intellect no (temporal) 
process as in the growth (and reality) of the seed. Rea- 
son is eternally " present with itself." "It does not 
extend itself to the objects of its perception as if it did 
not possess them, or as if it acquired them externally or 
obtained them by a discursive process, as if they were 
not already present with it ... : but it stands firmly 
in itself." For this reason, intellect, as distinguished 
from being, does not exist prior to being ; if it did, 
we should have to say that intellect, by energizing 
and intellectually perceiving, generated beings. Rather, 
intellect is posterior to being, just as the energy of fire 



276 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

is posterior to fire ; and yet, since intellect would lack in 
itself being (and hence would not be intellect) if it became 
its object or being, we say that being and intellect are 
one. Considered with reference to its contents the 
intelligible world is or contains in it " according quali- 
ties and quantities, numbers and magnitudes, habitudes, 
actions, and passions, which are according to nature, 
motions, permanencies, both universal and particular," 
"sameness, difference, the stable, essence, quality, art." 
On the contrary, there is in the intelligible world no art 
that has to do with sensible things. " Neither will the 
agriculture be there which is conversant with a sensible 
plant ; nor the medicine which saves the health of the 
body, or which contributes to strength and a good cor- 
poreal habit. For there is another power, another 
health, there, through which all animals are sufficiently 
corroborated." Rhetoric, military art, ceconomics, 
politics, and all natural objects are there merely by par- 
ticipation. " Geometry, however, by being conversant 
with intelligibles must be arranged in the intelligible 
world." The soul in its real essence is there and the 
true sciences and justice and temperance. 

The One, The First, The Good, — In intellect, or 
reason, there is a certain duality of the knower and 
the known, even though these be in a manner one, 
and therefore, says Plotinus, reason is not the Absolute 
(The First, The One, The Good). The Absolute is what 
is One simply and without qualification. It is prior to 
being and intellect. It is in itself neither intelligible 
nor intellective. It is intelligible in the sense that, 
being that which alone is absolutely perfect, its pres- 
ence with or to intellect or reason is essential to the 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 277 

perfect being and activity of intellect. If this, which 
is prior to intellect itself, had intellectual perception, it 
would have to have present with it another thing, and 
hence would not be sole and first, but "many" and 
second. The One is not one among many, nor one in 
or through many : it is absolutely sole. The thought 
of it is wholly unlike the thought of anything else. 
To attain to the perception of the One it is requisite 
to abstract totally from the world of sense, i.e., "to com- 
mit one's soul to, and establish it in, intellect." One 
then perceives that which is absolutely formless and 
distinctionless, and it may be, becomes weary of the 
vision and wishes to descend again to the world of sense. 
"When the soul directs its attention to that which is 
formless, then being unable to comprehend that which 
is not bounded, and, as it were, irnpressed with forms 
by a former of a various nature, it falls from the appre- 
hension of it and is afraid it will possess nothing from 
the view. Hence it becomes weary in endeavors of 
this kind, and gladly descends from the survey, fre- 
quently falling from all things till it arrives at some- 
thing sensible, and, as it were, rests on a solid substance ; 
just as sight, also, when wearied with the perception 
of small objects, eagerly turns to such as are larger." 
Nevertheless, the Absolute, or First, is to be approached 
only in the manner described. All intellectual percep- 
tions proper, however pure of sense, are but conditions 
to the apprehension of the One. In speaking of the One 
we necessarily apply names to it that designate not any- 
thing that is really in the One itself, but, " something 
which happens to us because we possess something 
from it, the One meantime subsisting in itself. It is 



278 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

necessary, however, when speaking accurately of the 
One, neither to call it that nor this. But we, running, as 
it were, externally around it, are desirous of explaining 
the manner in which we are affected about it. At one 
time, indeed, we draw near to it, but at another time 
fall from it by our doubts about it. . . . Doubt espe- 
cially arises because the perception of the highest Good 
is not effected by science [i.e., natural, or mathematical 
science] nor by intelligence [the knowledge . of pure 
types] like other intelligibles, but by the presence of 
him. All concrete or synthetic doctrine extends only 
so far as the way and progression to him." The act 
of perceiving the One is a complete merging into it, a 
perfect union of knowing subject with known object, a 
union which is of the nature of the One and is hence 
necessarily a perfect union of the knowing subject with 
itself. It is only after separating from the One that 
intellect has before it the distinction of subject and 
object. The One is distinct from, though present with, 
all else. 

Intellect, Reason, or Nous as an Emanation. — The One 
being thus prior for thought to all things else is the 
absolute prius of all things else. But in what way ? 
How does the (our) thought of the One lead to that of in- 
tellect, soul, and sensible things ? How do all things 
else follow from the One ? When we try to hold or, 
we may just as well say, lose, ourselves in the concep- 
tion of the One, or pure formlessness, we find sponta- 
neously arising the thought of the opposite. This fact 
is the foundation of Plotinus's theory of the " genera- 
tion and order of all things after the first." "The One 
being perfect in consequence of not seeking or possess- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 2/9 

ing, or being in want of anything . . . becomes, as it 
were, overflowing, 1 and the super-plenitude of it pro- 
duces something else. That, however, which is gen- 
erated from it (being still under its influence) turns 
towards it (to become or to partake of, the One) and is 
filled, and was generated looking to it. But this is 
intellect and the permanency of it about the One pro- 
duced being, but its vision intellect. When, therefore, 
it is established about the One in order that it may see 
it, then it becomes at once intellect and being." 2 In 
this vision of the One intellect has the consciousness 
of power and of itself. The One, that is to say, having 
produced by its overflowing an energy which it causes 
to turn back towards it and look at it sinks down (for 
that intellective power) into the realm of being, and 
being and intellect are thus organically distinguished 
and joined — immanent the one in the other by the 
presence of the One — as knower and known. Intel- 
lect viewing being in a light reflected from the One — 
seeing being by vision that it has immediately on leav- 
ing the One — sees being as one (a form of One) rather 
than many, and one with itself (intellect) : it therefore 
sees itself. Viewing being as being, i.e., as established 
and independent, it sees it as many (rather than one). 
In the latter form it is discursive and scientific, not 
pure intellect. " By logically analyzing the conception 
of self -consciousness we obtain, first of all, Nous itself, 
or Reason, as the subject, and Existence as the object 
of thought. Subject and object, considered as the 

1 In all other natures desire or want is the cause of their putting forth 
energy. 

2 On the Generation and Order of Things after The First (Taylor's 
trans.). 



280 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

same with one another, give us Identity ; considered as 
distinct they give us Difference. The passage from 
one to the other gives Motion the limitation of 
thought to itself gives Rest. The plurality of deter- 
minations so obtained gives Number and Quantity, their 
specific difference gives Quality, and from these princi- 
ples everything else is derived." 1 Such is the deduc- 
tion of the primary ideas from the One and from Nous 
and Being. The intelligible world does not fall below 
the notion of organic unity. The intelligible world 
is an " image " of the One. It is an organism of eter- 
nal types and forms. Now, since form must have real- 
ization in matter, there is in the intelligible world a 
universal substratum, " incorporeal matter." This is 
the bond of union among the Ideas, or distinct forms, 
of the intelligible world. It is cognized by "indefinite" 
reason. 

Soul. — Out of the superabundance of the Intellect, or 
Nous, comes soul, 2 which is an " image " of Nous, as 
this is of the One. It partakes of the permanent, 
abiding nature of Nous but has in it also the negative 
of permanence, the principle of motion. Nothing, how- 
ever, intervenes between soul and Nous : though dis- 
tinct, they are continuous one with the other. Soul, 
imitating Nous, looks back to its origin (as the Demiur- 
gus of Plato's Timceus looks to the Idea) and generates 
an image of itself ; viz., visible nature which also is a 
kind of soul. From both of these are generated souls, 
rational and irrational. The " procession," or going 

1 Benn's The Greek Philosophers, Vol. II. p. 321. 

2 See On the Essence of the Soul, a Discussion of Doubts relative to 
the Soul. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 28 1 

forth of souls, from Nous is neither a voluntary nor a 
compulsory act, but "resembles a physical leaping or 
the natural tendencies to wedlock, or the impulses to 
certain beautiful actions to which we are not excited by 
a reasoning process." Each individual soul has inhe- 
rent in it the universal law that carries it naturally to its 
particular end at the time appointed by the law itself ; 
or, to state the same fact in a different way, each soul 
is suspended from an intellect which rules its course 
(as, according to Aristotle, the Heavens are "suspended" 
from the Deity, or Prime Mover). " Souls fall from the 
intelligible world, in the first place, indeed, into the 
heavens, and there receiving a body they proceed 
through it into terrene bodies so far as their progres- 
sions are more extended in length. And some of them 
proceed from the heavens into inferior bodies, but 
others pass from certain bodies into others : these being 
such as have not sufficient power to raise themselves 
from hence on account of the great weight of oblivion 
which they have attracted and which draws them down 
by their oppressive influence." Souls differ either in- 
herently or from the diversity of the circumstances 
into which they are introduced or from fortune and 
education. That natural and, as it were, free necessity 
which conducts all beings to that condition of existence 
to which they are adapted, " coordinating and weaving 
together even the smallest things," is a kind of uni- 
versal justice awarding their deserts to those who have 
done good or evil, whether in this life or a preexistent 
state. 

Soul and Body. — As being an " intelligible nature 
and divine allotment " the soul is not body nor the har- 



282 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

mony in incorporeal natures, nor the entelechy, or per- 
fection, of the body. The soul is " present with* the 
body ; and, as the One is with intellect and intellect 
with the soul, it is not in the body ; rather the body is in 
it, as the air is and shines in the light. As intermediate 
in nature between the perfectly indivisible (the One and 
intellect) and the divisible (the sense world), the soul is 
present with the body as whole and as part. The whole 
soul is in each part, but has a difference of function in 
the different parts by virtue of its adaptability to differ- 
ences in the organs of the body. If the soul were not 
(as thus) an organism, all synthesis of the findings of 
the separate senses would be an impossibility and so, 
likewise, would all distinguishing and mental registering 
of sensations, for there will be no locating of them. 
The order and beauty of the cosmos, to take a quite 
analogous case, show that there must be a single power 
which wisely connects and governs all things in it. This 
power is the soul of the world. The soul in the body, 
by virtue of its (relative) divisibility, supplies all parts 
of the body with life and "power of sensation"; by 
virtue of its indivisibility it "conducts all things wisely." 
In the case of the sense of touch the whole body is 
present as instrument with the soul ; in that of the other 
senses only limited parts of the body. The central seat 
of sensation is the brain. Though the sensitive soul is 
bodily in nature, it is, to some extent, "judicial," or 
intellective. The phantasy, or imagination (in the widest 
sense), is permeated by reason ; impulse and appetite are 
not entirely beyond the influence of reason and phan- 
tasy. Memory has its roots partly in the intellect, 
partly in the phantasy. The soul is throughout, there- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 283 

fore, dominated by reason, or intellect. But because 
of the natural deterioration of intellect that takes place 
in the passing of intellect into soul, the intellect in the 
soul is not pure, or intuitive, but discursive, or rationalis- 
tic, intellect. Only rarely does the soul while in the 
body attain to the summit of intellect and merge into 
the Divine Being. It always possesses, however, though 
it does not always energize according to them, the in- 
nate ideas which it brought with it from the intelligible 
world. The soul, after its separation from the body, 
retains its powers, and has, if it has been deeply at- 
tracted by its bodily life, a recollection of everything 
done or suffered in the body. Evidence of the truth of 
the supposition that memory is not purely bodily in ori- 
gin and will continue after death is to be found in the 
fact that the soul remembers, while in the body, some 
things that are not bodily in their origin. " In course 
of time after death the recollection of other things from 
former lives will arise, so that some of the bodily recol- 
lections will be dismissed and be despised. For, the 
soul becoming in a greater degree purified from the 
body will recollect those things, the remembrance of 
which she lost in the present life." The intellect, as 
well as the memory, undergoes a process of purification 
after death. Then the ratiocination and the use of dis- 
course which are made necessary now by the irregular 
diversity of beings, or existences, give place to a pure 
intuition. " If, however, souls live in the intelligible 
world without (discursive) reasoning, how can they be 
any longer rational ? They are still rational because 
they are able to employ a reasoning process whenever 
circumstances render it necessary. It is necessary to 



284 GREEK PHILOSOPHY 

assume a ratiocination of this kind ... we must not 
think voice is employed by them there so long as they 
entirely subsist in the intelligible world. But where 
they have bodies in the heavens they do not use the 
dialect which they employ here through indigence or 
ambiguity ; but performing everything in an orderly 
manner and according to nature they neither command 
anything to be done nor consult about it. They also 
mutually know the objects of their knowledge through 
a conscious perception ; since even here, likewise, we 
know many things through the eyes, pertaining to those 
that are silent. There, however, every body is pure and 
each inhabitant is, as it were, an eye. Nothing, likewise, 
is there concealed or fictitious, but before one can speak 
to another the latter knows what the former intended 
to say." The Plotinic spirit-realm is thus completely 
determined, or organized, according to the conception of 
pure self-consciousness. 

The Individual Soul and the Soul of the World. — 
The individual soul is en rapport with the soul of the 
world and receives influences from it ; but is, by virtue 
of its rational part, a different soul from that of the uni- 
verse — just as the soul of the child in the womb is 
different from that of the mother. The soul of the 
world, which produces the beauty and order of the cos- 
mos, is (in part, at least) transcendent. Man may rise 
to a true sense of his own inherent worth and dignity 
by the contemplation of the soul of the world as mani- 
fested in the cosmos. 

The Sensidle World and Matter. — The sensible world 
begotten and fashioned by the soul of the universe, is 
an " imitation " of that soul immediately and of the in- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 285 

telligible world indirectly, for the soul receives from the 
intelligible world the principles of all things. These 
principles, or forms, it is the function of the soul to 
objectify. The result, the objectification of forms, is 
just the world of sensible objects. Form, however, re- 
quires for its objectification that in which it shall receive 
real existence, and this is termed matter. 1 Sensible 
objects as such are constantly passing into and out of 
existence. Since form is intelligible, and as such per- 
manent, these changes must be due to the matter of such 
objects. Corporeal matter takes on now one form, now 
another, is potentially all things and "always some differ- 
ent thing." All theories, therefore, that represent matter 
as fixed, or determined, in any respect, as are the elements 
of Empedocles and atoms of Democritus, or as hav- 
ing form, as do virtually the " seeds " of Anaxagoras, are 
false. Matter is absolutely without quality of any sort 
— without even magnitude — all qualities, or determina- 
tions, being given to it by form, which alone possesses 
definiteness or distinguishableness. If matter possessed 
magnitude, for example, the creator would be subservi- 
ent to that, and "his production would not possess 
the quantity [nor the quality ? ] which he wished it 
should, but that which matter is capable of receiving." 
"Every form possesses magnitude and the quantity 
which it contains is accompanied with reason (i.e., with 
a productive principle) and subsists under this. Hence 
in every genus of things quantity is defined together 
with form. For there is one magnitude of a man and 
another of a bird." Matter is indefinite and perceived 

1 See Plotinus's On Matter. 



286 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

by the indefinite reason. " If, however, everything is 
known by reason and intelligence, but here reason in- 
deed says what it is requisite to say about it, and wish- 
ing to become intelligence is not intelligence but, as it 
were, a privation of intellect, — if this be the case, the 
conception of matter will rather be spurious, and not 
genuine ; be composed of an imagination which is not 
true and another kind of reason (compare Plato's ' spu- 
rious reason ' in the Timceus 1 ). What, therefore, is the 
indefiniteness of the soul ? Is it not all-perfect igno- 
rance, such as the absence of knowledge ? Or does the 
indefinite consist in a certain negation in conjunction 
with a certain affirmation, and is it like darkness to the 
eye, obscurity being the matter of every invisible color? " 
The notion of matter is not exactly that of nonentity, 
if it be possible to think nonentity. The soul is pained, 
shrinks, at the thought of indefiniteness, and instinc- 
tively affirms seeming nonentity as a kind of entity. 
But matter is, nevertheless, not magnitude nor quality 
of any sort but merely the capacity for the objectivity 
of the quality that is in form. Form, in other words, 
just as, seemingly, about to pass into nothingness sud^ 
denly develops into magnitude and every other quality. 
Matter is merely then the subject of the qualities and 
has no reality if there be no form. But as far as matter 
is concerned, there is between matter and form no rela- 
tion prior to their union, matter being entirely "indif- 
ferent to quality." Matter is mere externality, or other- 
ness. When we term it the infinite, or indefinite, we 
can mean only that it is not something possessing the 

1 Timceus, p. 52. See above, p. 92. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 287 

attribute of indefiniteness, but the indefinite itself. Cor- 
poreal matter is " perfect poverty," " necessarily evil," 
and the cause of evil. 

Virtue} — The world of sense is, for man, evil ; for it 
is the world of indefiniteness and change, whereas man is, 
by his very essence, — intellect and soul, — pure and per- 
manent. He must fly hence and become like God ; in 
this lies his virtue. It is doubtful if all the so-called 
virtues are virtues. Temperance and fortitude, for ex- 
ample, imply that man is subject to fear;, but pure rea- 
son knows no dread. The so-called " political virtues " 2 
are founded on deliberation, but deliberation is not a 
purely intellectual act or function. Temperance, forti- 
tude, prudence, and justice possess, indeed, a certain 
efficacy in assimilating man to the divine ; but God has 
no need of any of these virtues as such. Assimilation 
is of two sorts : one requiring an approach of two 
things towards each other in quality ; the other, that one 
of the two things approach in similitude the other, this 
other ranking as "first" and remaining unchanged. 
The assimilation upon which perfect virtue depends is 
assimilation to that which is unchanged. Such assimi- 
lation must result in a purification of the soul of all 
passion, and in making necessary sensations of pleasure 
remedies and means of liberation from pain, in causing 
the irrational part of the soul to be obedient to the 
rational part. In accordance with this idea, the " politi- 
cal virtues" must be transformed so that wisdom "will 
consist in a contemplation of what intellect contains" ; 

1 See On the Virtues. 

2 That is, the virtues described by Plato and Aristotle as necessary to 
the good citizen, the member of the ideal state. 



288 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

true justice will be that "energy of one thing towards 
itself in which there is not another and another " {i.e., 
the unity of self-consciousness) ; temperance, inward 
turning to intellect ; fortitude, apathy, according to a 
similitude of that to which the soul looks (i.e., the One 
shining in Reason), and which is naturally impassive " 
(i.e., pure reason). The virtue and end of man is that 
perfect felicity which is to be found only in intellectual 
contemplation. The soul's growth in this virtue is its 
return to God, the source from which it ultimately em- 
anated, the One. The proper virtue of the individual 
soul is of like nature with the " virtue" of all else that 
emanates from the One. Nous, Soul, Nature have their 
being and produce their works in acts of " contempla- 
tion " ; that is to say, in their natural aspiration and re- 
turn towards the One. 1 

Historical Sources of the System of Plotinus. — If 
we say that the system of Plotinus is, historically con- 
sidered, an attempt to mediate between, or " reconcile," 
the systems of Plato and Aristotle, rather, however, from 
the standpoint of the former than of the latter, we shall 
indicate at one and the same time the main historical 
sources and the essential character of the system in it- 
self. In the one we have the Idea of the Good which 
Plato affirmed (in the Republic' 1 ) to be above both 
knowledge, or science, and essence, or being. In the 
conception of reason and being as the unity of subject 
and object we have the God of Aristotle, and in the in- 
telligible world Plato's realm of Ideas given rather the 
psychological character of Aristotle's God. Plotinus's 

1 See On Nature, Contemplation, and the One. 

2 See above, p. 87. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 289 

theory of the soul, with its doctrines of preexistence, 
the imprisonment of the soul in the body, and its immor- 
tality, is Platonic and not Aristotelian ; but Plotinus's 
arguments relating to the unity of the soul, its relation 
to the body, the unity of subject and object, etc., seem 
to be traceable to Aristotle's De Anima. In Plotinus's 
account of the sensible world and of matter, we find a 
combination of Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic views 
combined. Again, Plotinus's ethics, if such it may be 
termed, is, in its subjectivity, asceticism, and impassiv- 
ity, somewhat Stoic ; in its purely theoretic tendency, 
Aristotelian ; in its purism, enthusiasm, and aspiration 
towards supra-mundane perfection, Platonic. Finally, 
in the deduction from the One of all things else, we 
have an attempt similar to that of the Pythagoreans to 
deduce all things else, from mere number up to self -con- 
sciousness, from the primal One. 1 Plotinus himself very 
frequently speaks with veneration of the " ancient phi- 
losophers," and freely acknowledges obligations to them. 
Result. — Notwithstanding, however, the obvious in- 
debtedness of Plotinus to earlier philosophers, it seems 
clear, even from our brief sketch of his real system, that 
he had a standpoint and a full, firm grasp upon the phil- 
osophical conceptions that he had borrowed, that were 
quite his own. By bringing together Plato's Idea and 
Aristotle's Thought of Thought, he, in the first place, 
openly converted the former from an idea, or thought- 
object, to a conception, or thought-function, or, better, a 
thinking-subject, and so made the Idea more distinctly 
an intelligent, synthetic power, — the One, that is to 
say, is Plato's Idea become inner, spiritual ; and, in the 

1 See above, p. 7. 



29O GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

second place, made the latter, Thought of Thought, 
which is a more or less dual self-consciousness, more 
distinctly absolute spirit. Viewed externally, or as 
idea, the One of Plotinus seems, indeed, but a mere 
abstraction, indistinguishable from mere matter; but, 
comprehended from within, it is the opposite of that, 
— it is pure intellectual power, absolute self-determi- 
nation. If it seems to lack content, we have to re- 
member that its content is merely held in abeyance, 
is to be developed by the system : the One is in reality 
fulness of power, which goes forth spontaneously — 
overflows — into existence, or concrete actuality. Psy- 
chologically considered, Plotinus possesses a certain 
unique excellence that even places him, in a certain re- 
spect, above both Plato and Aristotle — the one a mas- 
ter of dialectic thinking and the other of discursive 
reflection, — viz., a singularly sustained purity and lofti- 
ness of insight and peculiar power of keeping the mind's 
eye ever fixed in the direction of the sole truth. This 
appears particularly in his masterly attempt at a synthe- 
sis of the Idea and the Thought of Thought, and the 
completeness with which the conception of the One 
dominates his mental attitude ; and constitutes a new 
force in the history of Greek thought. — As regards the 
perfection of the system of Plotinus as a system, one 
point seems to demand attention here. The system is 
a system of emanation, and there is, logically, no return 
of the first .principle upon itself : the system is a straight 
line instead of circle, a fact that seems at first sight 
peculiarly inconsistent with the fact that its first prin- 
ciple is the One. The solution of the antinomy seems to 
lie in the consideration that, just because the One is abso- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 29 1 

lute, it can be "mediated" by nothing else. A return 
into self is not necessitated. It overflows naturally, 
spontaneously, and is in no way dependent in its emana- 
tions. There is, it may be said, a certain "return" 
towards the One on the part of the soul and of nature in 
the act of contemplation ; but the One is in no way 
affected by this, though the return may be considered 
as a natural, spontaneous consequence of the working of 
the One in the soul and in nature. 

Porphyry and Other Commentators. — Mention may 
be made of Porphyry, the pupil and biographer of 
Plotinus, whose right to a place in the history of phi- 
losophy seems to rest chiefly upon his services in dif- 
fusing the opinions of Plotinus, and in expounding in 
an attractive manner writings of Plato and Aristotle, 
particularly portions of the Organon of the latter. He 
taught piety and asceticism, and inclined to theurgy. — 
Three other important commentators on Aristotle are 
Themistins (fourth century a.d.), Simplicius, and Phi- 
loponns (sixth century a.d.). 

Jamblichus. — Jamblichus (fl. 306-337), a pupil of 
Porphyry, " attempted a speculative justification of su- 
perstition. He imitated Pythagoras more than Plato, 
his philosophy resting rather on mystical speculations 
with numbers than on Platonic ideas. In his system not 
only did all the gods of the Greeks and Orientals (ex- 
cepting the Christian God) and the gods of Plotinus find 
a place, but he also took a quite peculiar pleasure in 
adding to the number of superior divinities from the 
resources of his own fancy." x Above even the One of 
Plotinus, Jamblichus supposes an unknowable essence. 

1 Ueberweg. 



292 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Below the One are the intelligible world, the world of 
thinking beings, including Nous, Power, and Demiurge 
(Creator). Next in rank is a triplicity of souls, and last 
the sense-world. Jamblichus blended with theology Neo- 
Pythagorean number-speculation. He defended image- 
worship, theurgy, and prophecy. His ethical creed is 
contained in the idea, held by Plotinus and Porphyry, 
of purification. He is said to have been the intellectual 
ideal of Proclus, the last great thinker of the school of 
the Neo-Platonists and the last great mind in the history 
of Greek speculation. 

Proclus .- 1 Life. — Proclus (412-485 a.d.) carefully 
prepared himself for the profession of forensic oratory 
and afterwards gave attention to the sciences — particu- 
larly to geometry, preparing commentaries on the works 
of Euclid, — gaining probably in this way much of that 
fine intellectual power and that appreciation of scien- 
tific method and form which place him among the 
master-dialecticians and system-makers. He was espe- 
cially noted for his moral and spiritual excellence; for 
the possession not merely of the "political virtues," 
but also of the "theological," or "religious," virtues. 
" He seems to have held the view that the pupil of 
theology ought to avail himself of every branch of en- 
lightenment, but the philosophical specially, as a means 
to a higher intelligence, in that he is to purify himself 
by virtue, to make himself master of physics, and by 
logical exercises prepare himself for a knowledge of the 
divine. His object is to construct a complete system 
of theology on a train of consequential reasoning." 

1 See Ritter and Uebervveg. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 293 

He mastered' the whole course of Greek philosophy, 
prepared commentaries on the Parmenides and Timceus 
of Plato, and Plato's theology generally, and taught 
philosophy at Athens. 

The Philosophy of Proclus. — The philosophy of Pro- 
clus may be described in general terms as substantially 
the same in content with that of Plotinus, differing 
from it in scientific rigidity and symmetry, as regards 
form, and by a more marked theological aim. Imme- 
diately below the One there is in the system of 
Proclus not, as in that of Plotinus, the intelligible 
world, or reason and being, but a "plurality of unities" 
which mediate between the One and what is below 
them, the One being otherwise entirely out of relation 
to that which emanates from it. These unities are 
gods. They are " followed by the triad of the intel- 
ligible, intelligible-intellectual, and intellectual essences. 
The first of these falls under the concept of being, 
the second under that of life, the third under that of 
thought. Between these three essences, or classes of 
essences, there exist also, notwithstanding their unity, 
an order of rank ; the second participates in the first, 
the third in the second. The intelligible in the nar- 
rower sense of the term, or Being, includes three triads, 
in each of which the first two terms are " limit " and 
" illimitation," the third terms being in the first triad, 
the union of the two first or "being"; in the second, 
"life"; in the third, ideas or that which has "life in 
itself." In each of these triads, the first or limiting 
term is also denominated by Proclus (who follows in 
this particular the precedent of Jamblichus) " Father" ; 
the second or limited term, Power; and the third 



294 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

or mixed term, " Reason." The intelligible-intellectual 
sphere falling under the concept of life contains, ac- 
cording to Proclus, feminine divinities, and is sub- 
divided into the following triads : One, Other, Being, 
the triad of original numbers ; One and Many, Whole 
and Part, Limitation and Illimitation, the triad of gods 
who hold together ; and the triad of ' perfecting Gods.' 
The intellectual essences, lastly, falling under the con- 
cept of reason are arranged according to the number 
seven, the first two terms in the triad, or the terms 
which correspond respectively with Being and Life 
being subject to a threefold division, while the 
third term remains undivided." 2 The human soul, 
according to Proclus, does not commune with God 
immediately but mediately, through daemons, or spirits 
next in rank above it. The union of each order of 
being with that next above is effected by love, Hold- 
ing, as he did, that the soul is farther removed from 
God and in closer connection with matter than Plotinus 
had conceived it, Proclus rejected the Plotinic (Stoic) 
doctrine of apathy. The relation of the individual to 
the universal in the system of Proclus is mystical. The 
system is theological rather than philosophical in its 
aim. — As an illustration of his application of the 
" geometrical method," — probably under the influence 
of Euclid, — we give the seventh Proposition in the " Ele- 
ments of Theology " 2 with its demonstration. " Every- 
thing productive of another is more excellent than the 
nature of the thing produced : For it is either more 
excellent, or worse, or equal. Let it be, in the first 

1 Ueberweg, Vol. I. p. 258. 

2 Translated by Thomas Taylor. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 295 

place, equal. That which is produced from this, there- 
fore, will itself also either possess a power productive of 
some other, or it will be entirely barren. But if it be 
barren, it will on this account be worse than its produc- 
ing cause : and because of its inefficacy it will be 
unequal to that which is prolific and possesses a produc- 
tive power. But if it be productive of other natures, it 
will either produce that which is equal to itself (and this 
will be the case in all things, and all things will be equal 
to each other and nothing will be more excellent than 
another, since the productive nature always constitutes 
the thing produced equal to itself) or that which is 
unequal. But in this case, it will not be equal to its 
producing cause ; for it is the property of equal powers 
to fabricate equal effects. But the productions of these 
are unequal to each other, since in this hypothesis the 
producing cause is equal to that which is prior to itself. 
It is requisite, therefore, that the thing produced should 
not be equal to its producing cause. But neither can 
the producing cause be ever worse than the thing pro- 
duced. For if the producing cause confers essence on 
the thing produced, it bestows power also, according to 
essence. And if it is productive of all the power which 
that posterior to itself possesses, it can also make itself 
such as its production. But if it can do this, it will also 
make itself more powerful ; for impotence cannot hinder, 
since a fabricative power is present, nor defect of will. 
For all things naturally desire good. Hence if it can 
form anything else more perfect, it will also perfect 
itself before it perfects that which is posterior to itself. 
The thing produced, therefore, is neither equal to nor 
more excellent than its producing cause, and hence 



296 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the producing cause is entirely more excellent than the 
nature of the thing produced." 

Result. — Neo-Platonism was the last of the schools 
of Greek philosophy. Notwithstanding the opposition 
of its leaders to Christianity, this school by its attempt 
to unite philosophy and religion and by the encourage- 
ment it gave to popular super-naturalism was the point 
of transition from pure ancient Greek pagan specula- 
tion to Christian Theology. It had a large influence 
on the Church in the Middle Ages. 



PHILOSOPHY. 



Empirical Psychology ; 



or, The Human Mind as Given in Consciousness. 

By Laurens P. Hickok, D.D., LL.D. Revised with the co-operation of 
Julius H. Seel ye, D.D., LL.D., President of Amherst College. 12mo. 
300 pages. Mailing Price, $1.25; Introduction, $1.12; Allowance, 40 
cents. 

rpHE publishers believe that this book will be found to be re- 
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clear. It gives a complete outline of the science, concisely pre- 
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It has proved of special value to teachers, as is evidenced by its 
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John Bascom, Pres. of University 
of Wisconsin, Madison : It is an ex- 
cellent book. It has done much good 
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(Feb. 3, 1882.) 

I. W. Andrews, Prof, of Intellec- 



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0. : This new edition may be confi- 
dently recommended as presenting a 
delineation of the mental faculties so 
clear and accurate that the careful 
student will hardly fail to recognize 
its truth in his own experience. 
(April 6, 1882.) 



Hickok 's Moral Science. 

By Laurens P. Hickok, D.D., LL.D. Revised with the co-operation of 
Julius H. Seelye, D.D., LL.D., President of Amherst College. 12mo. 
Cloth. 288 pages. Mailing Price, $1.25; Introduction, $1.12; Allowances 
40 cents. 

A S revised by Dr. Seelye, it is believed that this work will be 
found unsurpassed in systematic rigor and scientific precision, 
and at the same time remarkably clear and simple in style. 



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adapted to serve as a text-book in 
colleges and higher schools. In mat- 
ter and manner it is a capital book, 
and I wish it God speed. 



PHILOSOPHY. 109 

Lotze's Philosophical Outlines. 

Dictated Portions of the Latest Lectures (at Gottingen and Berlin) of 
Hermann Lotze. Translated and edited by George T. Ladd, Pro- 
fessor of Philosophy in Yale College. 12mo. Cloth. About 180 pages 
in each volume. Mailing Price per volume, $1.00; Introduction Price, 
80 cents. 

rpHE German from which the translations are made consists of 
the dictated portions of his latest lectures (at Gottingen, and 
for a few months at Berlin) as formulated by Lotze himself, 
recorded in the notes of his hearers, and subjected to the most 
competent and thorough revision of Professor Rehnisch of Got- 
tingen. The Outlines give, therefore, a mature and trustworthy 
statement, in language selected by this teacher of philosophy him- 
self, of what may be considered as his final opinions upon a 
wide range of subjects. They have met with no little favor in 
Germany. 

These translations have been undertaken with the kind permis- 
sion of the German publisher, Herr S. Hirzel, of Leipsic. 

Outlines of Metaphysic. 

rriHIS contains the scientific treatment of those assumptions 
which enter into all our cognition of Reality. It consists of 
three parts, — Ontology, Cosmology, Phenomenology. The first 
part contains chapters on the Conception of Being, the Content of 
the Existent, Reality, Change, and Causation ; the second treats 
of Space, Time, Motion, Matter, and the Coherency of Natural 
Events ; the third, of the Subjectivity and Objectivity of Cog- 
nition. The Metaphysic of Lotze gives the key to his entire 
philosophical system. 

Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion. 

I" OTZE here seeks " to ascertain how much of the Content of 
Religion may be discovered, proved, or at least confirmed, 
agreeably to reason." He discusses the Proof for the Existence of 
God, the Attributes and Personality of the Absolute, the Concep- 
tions of the Creation, the Preservation, and the Government, of the 
World, and of the World-time. The book closes with brief discus- 
sions of Religion and Morality, and Dogmas and Confessions. 



110 PHILOSOPHY. 



Outlines of Practical Philosophy. 

rpHIS contains a discussion of Ethical Principles, Moral Ideals, 
and the Freedom of the Will, and then an application of the 
theory to the Individual, to Marriage, to Society, and to the State. 
Many interesting remarks on Divorce, Socialism, Representative 
Government, etc., abound throughout the volume. Its style is 
more popular than that of the other works of Lotze, and it will 
doubtless be widely read. 



Outlines of Psychology. 

rpHE Outlines of Psychology treats of Simple Sensations, the 
Course of Representative Ideas, of Attention and Inference, 
of Institutons of Objects as in Space, of the Apprehension of the 
External World by the Senses, of Errors of the Senses, of Feelings, 
and of Bodily Motions. Its second part is " theoretical," and dis- 
cusses the nature, position, and changeable states of the Soul, its 
relations to time, and the reciprocal action of Soul and Body. 
It closes with a chapter on the " Kingdom of Souls." Lotze is 
peculiarly rich and suggestive in the discussion of Psychology. 

Outlines of /Esthetics. 

npHE Outlines of ^Esthetics treats of the theory of the Beautiful 
and of Phantasy, and of the Realization and Different Species 
of the Beautiful. Then follow brief chapters on Music, Architec- 
ture, Plastic Art, Painting, and Poetry. An appendix to this 
volume contains a brief biography of Lotze. 

Outlines of Logic. 

rpHIS discusses both pure and applied Logic. The Logic is 
followed by a brief treatise on the Encyclopaedia of Phi- 
losophy, in which are set forth the definition and method of 
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